Un Chant de Noël
by Emari-chan
Summary: An interpretation of Victor Hugo's Les Misérables through the lens of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Or, in which Javert needs a little help feeling the holiday spirit. Gen or pre-slash, some angst with a happy ending, direct and obvious allusion to Javert's canon demise, enemies to friends trope, etc.
1. Stave 1: The Ghosts

**A/N:** A few overall notes to start us off with:

One, in terms of timeline, this fic is set on Christmas Eve/Day of 1823, after Valjean has escaped the Orion and is in the midst of rescuing Cosette from the Thenardiérs. I have fudged other canon elements of the timeline ever so slightly to make the story work; generally speaking, it shouldn't be noticeable.

Re: shipping - I am a Valvert shipper, hands-down, but A Christmas Carol isn't a very romantically-oriented story. As of right now, I do not foresee this turning into slash, but if the Muse speaks... well, we'll see. Tags will be updated if/when necessary, across the board, for all content. Otherwise, feel free to read this with shipping goggles on if you like, or not.

Finally, I've been thinking about writing this for a long time, but am only just now getting around to it. I hope you enjoy, and without further ado, here is my little Christmas/Hanukkah/Kwanzaa/Yule/Festivus/etc. gift to you all.

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Stave One: The Ghosts

Christmas Eve in Paris was bitterly cold, arriving on the tails of a snowstorm that had whited out the skies three days prior. The drifts lay heavy along the gutters, though in the street, the snow was sinking slowly into grey sludge with the passing of each carriage. Last-minute shoppers hurried down the boulevard, faces bent against the wind. Behind the leaded windows, brightly colored toys lay nestled in enchanting displays, while wreaths of fir and holly hung on every door. The police depot on the corner was made no exception, and the officers bid one another a "Merry Christmas" as they went their separate ways for the night.

Inside the depot, offices that were customarily quiet, even somber, were overflowing with good cheer. A tree was set in the lobby, and somewhere around three o'clock, a decanter of spiced wine had found its way over to the clerk; after a few glasses, the very air itself felt more boisterous. In the whole building, only one door remained shut and unwelcoming. And yet, such a power emanated from that room that even in the midst of the celebrations, those who did pass it by faltered and lowered their voices. This office belonged to none other than one M. Javert, and he was far from prepared to divest himself of his work, no matter how festive the occasion.

Upon the particular Christmas Eve during which our story takes place, M. Javert was absorbed in a most taxing and particular assignment - namely, the pursuit and capture of the once-convict, Jean Valjean. As any who read the papers could have recounted after his sensational flight from Montreuil-sur-Mer, Valjean was wanted on a number of charges, which ranged from breaking parole to robbery to fraudulence; Javert was determined to see him back behind bars as soon as was possible. However, progress on the case was slow, for Paris was notorious for its many sinkholes in which it was possible to disappear, and Valjean had made a fine job of it.

Javert was in the midst of re-reading the latest reports for what must have been the hundredth time when he was interrupted by a knock at the door. Glancing up, Javert observed the entrance of M. Chabouillet, Secretary of the Prefecture. Javert dipped his head perfunctorily and returned to his reading.

"Evening, Monsieur Javert," Chabouillet said, an easy smile on his face.

"Mmm," came the grunted response.

Chabouillet, standing in the open doorway, crossed his arms. "Still working, I see?"

Turning the page, Javert replied, "Valjean is hardly likely to turn himself in. If I am to find him, then the work must be done."

"You never know," Chabouillet chuckled. "After that spectacle he made in Arras...!"

There was no answering mirth in Javert's smile when he said, "I will not chance the security of Paris on spectacle, Monsieur."

"No, I suppose not," the Secretary conceded. Even so, the amusement had not left his eyes when he asked, "And what of your plans for tomorrow?"

For a moment, Javert paused, the report in his hand stilling. "Tomorrow?" he repeated.

"Yes, tomorrow, Christmas Day."

Javert returned to reading, his disinterest plain. "I expect I shall be here."

"You most certainly shall not."

At that, Javert looked up again, going so far as to lay the report down on his desk.

Chabouillet shook his head. "The depot shall be closed tomorrow, Javert. Folks intend to spend the holiday with their families, and there's no sense in paying for the coal to heat an empty building."

This news seemed to startle Javert momentarily. "You mean to close the entire building? And what if someone should be in need of the police?"

Waving this away, Chabouillet scoffed. "Need the police? On Christmas Day? Javert, France shall not fall to pieces overnight, and it is good for the men to take a day off now and again."

Javert's eyes flicked over the pile of paperwork before him as he considered this. Then, his resignation apparent, he responded, "Very well. I shall just have to take this home."

"Javert..." There was a faint warning to Chabouillet's voice, and Javert seemed to sense as much.

"Monsieur?"

"You are to take the day off, as well."

Javert froze for a second, his brow creased, before the protestation began. "I - I beg your pardon, Monsieur?"

Chabouillet nodded definitively. "Oh yes," he said. "I insist. You're overworking yourself, and I cannot have my finest officer collapsing. Take the holiday, Javert. Enjoy yourself."

Javert was inclined to argue, but with a deep breath, he collected himself. "If the Secretary insists..."

"I do," Chabouillet told him. "It will be good for you."

"In that case, I will need to finish this tonight," Javert muttered. "But there's no pattern to these reports, none at all - !"

"Javert," Chabouillet interrupted, "you do know that Christmas Eve is a holiday in its own right, do you not?" Before Javert could think to respond, the Secretary continued. "Your work ethic is admirable, officer, so please do not think I mock it. You have been an asset to us ever since you were transferred from Montreuil. A day off is meant to be a reward, not a punishment."

Sighing, Javert rubbed at his forehead. "The only reward I seek is justice, Monsieur."

"You'll be rewarded a great deal more than that," remarked Chabouillet. "I see promotion in your future, Javert, perhaps even to Inspector. In the meantime, content yourself with this. If you think of it, you might stop by my apartments tomorrow. It is tradition that my wife and I host a Christmas party, and the men from the station are always invited."

Standing, Javert began to stack his papers together. "The invitation is noted, Monsieur, but I doubt I shall go. It is not my custom to make merry."

Chabouillet shrugged. "As you wish, then. Have a good night, Javert, and a _restful_ Christmas!" The Secretary turned to go, acknowledging Javert's "Good evening," with a gesture of his hand. As he strolled down the hall, disappearing from view, he went so far as to whistle a few bars of what might have been Good King Wenceslas.

Javert, alone in his office, considered the stack of reports. He was tempted to take them home with him, but Chabouillet had expressly commanded that he did not, and he did not think he could conscience disobeying a direct order. The matter of Jean Valjean weighed heavily on his mind, however, and he knew it would continue to do so.

Pressing his lips together, Javert donned his heavy greatcoat and gloves against the winter chill, and stepped into the hall himself. As he made his way out of the station, a few officers hailed him with invitations, but Javert ignored the lot of them.

The night was quiet, and every exhalation made a cloud of glittering white particles blossom in the air. Hunkering into his woolen coat, Javert cut an imposing figure as he strode down the street. A frugal man by nature, and disinclined to treat any part of his forced repose as a vacation, Javert did not stop to catch a fiacre at the corner but continued walking.

He almost regretted this decision a few minutes later when a young man in a red coat caught him by the arm.

"Good evening, Monsieur," said the youth. "My fellows and I are raising funds for the poor this holiday season - would you like to make a donation?"

"I am not interested," Javert replied coolly, removing his arm from the young man's grip and going to continue down the road.

Not to be so easily deterred, the youth, who was quite blond, followed. "There are many this time of year who go without food or warmth - it is the duty of those more fortunate to lend them some aid."

At this, Javert did stop, for the business of Jean Valjean was on his mind still, and so he took it upon himself, by his thinking, to enlighten the persistent lad.

"Any good and honest man may find work if he be so inclined," Javert pronounced, looking his pursuer in the eye. "Those who go without surely do so only because of some laziness and immorality on their part. For those, prison will suit, and then they shall have both food and their fill of work."

Having made his point, the officer turned back toward his path, but for the third time, the young man called out.

"Prisons and workhouses - these hardly furnish men with the necessities, Monsieur, let alone with the Christmas spirit. Why, many would rather die than go to either."

Javert barked a laugh. "So much the better, then. France will be a happier kingdom indeed when all her miscreants lie buried or in chains. By all means, continue with your paltry efforts, but expect nothing to come of it."

The youth seethed, but he eyed Javert's stature and bearing, and seemed to think better of arguing further. Instead, he turned his own way down the street, doubtless on his way to petition other passersby.

Pleased with himself, Javert followed the twisting streets of the city as they became darker and narrower until such a point as he reached a tenement house three stories in height. It was built of a yellow brick, and on a grander building its windows might have been termed Palladian. The interior was dimly lit by a single wall sconce, but this was sufficient to find the staircase and ascend the first flight, whereupon Javert turned down the left wing toward his apartment. His was the third door on the right-hand side, and he paused outside of it to locate his key.

It was in the moment between drawing the key from his pocket and inserting it into the keyhole that Javert noticed a curious thing occur. There in the hallway, the door knob took on the visage of a man. So plain was it that Javert could make out even the blue coat he wore, the red piping, and the King's fleur de lys on his chest. In his surprise, Javert took a step back, and the man's eyes seemed to follow him as he did so. Then, the moment passed, and the knob was merely a knob again.

Javert found himself unnerved; he was hardly given to flights of fancy, and yet what he had observed was impossible. He credited the strange apparition to the quality of the light and his own distracted state, and quite firmly opened the door into his quarters.

Inside, the room was dark and cold. On most evenings, Javert would first have removed his coat, but the incident at the door had shaken him more than he cared to admit, and so instead, Javert first lit a candle, followed by the fire. Only when the room was well-illuminated did he content himself to remove his outermost layers. He hesitated a moment, and then locked the front door. He hesitated a moment more, and then double locked it.

Javert's apartment was a simple affair. The main room contained the hearth, a single armchair, and a dining table. There were shelves opposite the window, but they were empty except for a few books. The second room was the bedchamber, and its contents totaled a bed, a mechanical clock abandoned by the previous renter, and a chest of drawers. With some degree of suspicion, Javert pushed open the bedroom door and peered inside, raising the candle with one hand, but the room was empty. If someone were playing tricks on him, the only available culprit was himself.

With a shake of his head, Javert returned to the hearth and prepared a simple dinner; the remainder of the previous evening's mutton had stayed fresh in the freezing temperatures, and so was easily reheated over the small fire. Cold, and inclined to stick closer to the firelight, Javert did not remove himself to the table but rather sat in the armchair to eat. He could not have later described precisely what happened, but as he sat with his wooden bowl and tin utensils, some luminous glow - the fire? the waning moon? - seemed to give his dishes the luster of fine silver. A meaningless circumstance, certainly, he reasoned, and yet something in it brought a trace of anxiety to his heart.

Javert was in the midst of chiding himself for such foolishness, and writing it off as the results of Chabouillet's imposed idleness, when a third most terrible thing took place.

There was, next to the door, an old bell. Once, doubtless, drawing on its cord would have communicated something to someone, but its purpose was long-since forgotten, the building having changed hands several times since its installation. As such, the bell-pull was never used, and indeed, Javert had never thought anything of it. This most astonishing of nights, the bell pull slowly began to dip down, as if tugged by an invisible hand.

From the corner of his eye, Javert noticed the motion, and sat stock-still. Gradually, the cord began to pull itself faster, and the bell began to ring, quietly at first, and then more loudly. Growing more alarmed by the minute, Javert stood, only to notice the distant sound of a second chime, this one unmistakably belonging to the clock in the bedroom.

Javert took hold of the iron poker that sat next to the hearth, positioning himself behind the armchair. Precisely what this was intended to accomplish, he did not know, but the ghostly bells frightened him in a way he had not known for many years' time. When at last the incessant tolling began to slow, the sound was replaced by another, more insidious noise from down the hall: the clanking of chains.

This sound Javert was intimately familiar with, and what it foretold for him spelled out nothing but ill. With bated breath, he waited, and the scraping, rattling, dragging chains grew ever closer. When it came to pass that he could hear even the sounds of heavy footfalls, his pose grew readier, his grip on the poker firmer. Then the sounds stopped, and it seemed that whoever was thusly enchained must be standing just outside the door.

The whole world drew to a halt in the ensuing silence. Javert glanced around and then took a cautious step toward the door. Even before he had quite completed this small motion, the door was opening - nevermind that it was locked! - and the pitiful fire sprang up with a vengeance before guttering out completely.

Into the room hobbled three men, alike in stature and uniform, and all of them carrying what could only have been an immense weight in shackles. Each was possessed of a blue tailcoat emblazoned with red, cream trousers, and tall boots. They wore also the tall hats which identified them as gendarmes. Javert knew none of them, but with a thrill of horror, he recognized the middlemost man as being the one whose face had appeared earlier in the door knob. The three men also shared the trait of appearing translucent, such that Javert could see through them to the open door beyond.

The middle man - or perhaps more properly Ghost, whom Javert now noted bore the look of a brigadier - stepped forward.

Javert held his ground and the poker, and though he had been rendered briefly speechless, he now found his voice.

"Who are you?" he asked. "What do you want of me?"

The Ghost observed him with a dispassionate air. "Of the second - much. And of the first, who I was in life is of less import than what I - what we - did, and why we have come to you this night."

"Speak, then," Javert answered back, his voice steadier than he felt. "What have you done, that you think it concerns me?"

"Concern you, it does," replied the Ghost, "as you shall see. But first, may we sit down?"

Javert gestured around him. "I have not the chairs."

"Very well, then," said the Ghost. "We will stand. The story we have to tell you begins on a night much like tonight, eight years ago. The man named Jean Valjean is known to you, is he not?"

At that, Javert's attention was piqued in a way it had not been hitherto. "Certainly."

"Eight years ago, Monseigneur the Bishop Bienvenu offered him shelter for the night," began the Ghost. "And even as the man slept, Valjean stole the Bishop's silver."

"Ha," Javert interjected. "That doesn't surprise me in the least."

"Hush," commanded the Ghost of the brigadier. "Listen. He stole it because he had no money nor any means of work, while prison had taught him naught but hate. And he did not get far before he was caught, by us."

"Well done," Javert remarked.

"You are not listening," the Ghost seemed to sigh. "Then again, this was never meant to be easy. Pay attention, officer. We caught him, beat him, and dragged him back to the Bishop in chains. The Bishop, for his part, insisted that he had given Valjean the silver as a gift, and then gave him another two candlesticks to boot."

Javert shook his head. "Foolish of him. Generosity only encourages such behavior. What is your purpose in telling me this? If the Bishop claims the silver was a gift, then I can hardly add another count of robbery to the list of charges."

At this, a second Ghost, this one standing toward the right, spoke up. "You misunderstand him, Monsieur. Our story is not yet finished."

"Quite," continued the first Ghost. "At the Bishop's word, we let Valjean go. We thought nothing more of it, then, but nor did we learn anything by our experience. Years passed, and there were many who we arrested - others who were poor, and starving, and desperate. And one by one, death claimed each of us."

Javert frowned. "Speak, then, of that - what of your condition, here? Why do honorable members of the gendarmerie wear such shackles?"

At that, the three Ghosts laughed, a dark and sinister laugh. The third Ghost, who as of yet had spoken nothing, stepped forward.

"We forged them ourselves, by our deeds. You wear just such a chain yourself, Monsieur," he said.

Javert felt himself go cold, and he glanced down at himself, for though he could scarcely believe what he was seeing, the words he was hearing echoed undeniably in his ears. While he was relieved to see nothing tangible fettering him in place, the Ghost's next words quickly extinguished any solace he found in that fact.

"Only, as you yet live, yours has had time to grow even longer and more terrible than ours." The Ghost's voice then grew deeper in warning. "Continue as you have, and you may impress the Devil himself with the length of it."

Javert was not a man easily frightened, but the course of the evening had taken its toll, and these words offered nothing in the way of comfort. It was, then, the natural result that he trembled where he stood, his hands shaking where they yet gripped the fire poker.

"But... Messieurs," Javert managed, "I do not understand! I have striven to lead an upright life - I do not doubt that you did the same! What, then, is the crime that has left you so punished?"

"Indifference," said the first Ghost. "Self-righteousness."

"Cruelty," added the second.

"We had no compassion for the less fortunate," the third Ghost explained. "We blamed them for their troubles, beat them, imprisoned them, and left them to starve."

"And thus," the first Ghost concluded, "as we had no mercy upon others, so none has been shown to us."

"Nonsense," Javert argued with an uncertain laugh. "Cruelty? It is not cruelty to punish those wrongdoers who flaunt our laws, it is duty!"

"Duty?!" the three shrieked in unison.

"Speak not that word," implored the first. "Our duty was benevolence, our duty was charity, and we had none of it! Now we are cursed, without rest, to wander the earth forever. Careful, Monsieur, lest you endure the same fate!"

"It cannot be," Javert murmured. "It cannot be! Messieurs, please - surely there is a chance by which I might correct this?"

"There is a chance," confirmed the second Ghost. "One chance, and one only; tonight, you shall be haunted by three more Spirits."

Javert's eyes widened.

"Three more?" he asked faintly. "I think I have had quite enough of Spirits."

"Three more," the Ghost confirmed. "And you must listen to Them and see what They will show you. The first shall arrive at the stroke of one o'clock - the next on the hour after, and then the last the hour after that. Know, too, that if you cannot learn what they mean to show you, then your afterlife is forfeit to torment."

Having spoken their piece, the three Ghosts turned as one to the window and walked toward it. When they reached the wall, they kept on walking, and passed right through it into the night. Javert watched open-mouthed until they had disappeared entirely, and then he spun around.

The room looked no different than it had when he had returned home for the night; the door was closed, and double-bolted; there was a small fire in the grate; the remains of his supper sat on the armchair. Shaking more violently now that he was alone, Javert examined the poker clasped fast in his hands. His knuckles were white from gripping it, and it took some effort on his part to relinquish it to its place next to the hearth.

Once more, Javert surveyed the room. He saw nothing supernatural or out of place, nothing which suggested he had just been visited by a trio of Ghosts. For an instant, he considered that he might be mad. Then he decided that if indeed it was madness claiming him, it was a problem which could wait until morning.

Having made this resolution, Javert allowed the window a last, lingering glance, and then he retired to his bedchamber, where he did not even bother to undress before collapsing into bed. In an instant, he was asleep.


	2. Stave 2: The First of the Three Spirits

**A/N:** Backstory headcanons/elaboration on canon abound. Cheers.

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Stave Two: The First of the Three Spirits

Javert awoke without prelude, sheltered under the bedclothes, but aware of the darkness pressing close around him. What had caused him to wake, he wondered. The room was quiet but for his own breathing, empty but for where he lay motionless.

In the heavy silence, the first chime of the clock was like a gunshot. It pealed once - the quarter hour? - and then a second time - the half hour? - and then twice more. Remembering the words of the Ghosts, Javert shuddered when the clock made one final chime, this one deeper in timbre. It was an hour past midnight, the time when the Ghosts had alleged he would be visited by another Spirit. He sat up, drawing the covers more tightly towards himself, and wishing he had not left the poker in the other room.

The sound of the chimes faded, and the room was as empty as ever. Though his heart pounded, Javert felt suddenly inclined to laugh at himself. To think - some nightmare he had had of Ghosts, and had woken expecting them still to haunt him.

No sooner had he arrived at the comforting conclusion that he had dreamed his entire evening, than a brilliant white light burst from out the center of the room. Dazzled, Javert clapped his hands over his face, falling back against the pillows.

As he blinked, Javert's eyes adjusted, and he began to make out a figure standing in the center of the radiance. Even as he looked, the light dimmed until it was no more than a hazy glow, revealing what could only be a Spirit. Not a dream, then, but reality.

And what a reality it was. At least in the case of the gendarmes, they were the Ghosts of people unknown to him. This Spirit, a woman, he recognized immediately; he thought perhaps he might have blanched at the sight of her. Though she appeared more happy and hale than ever she had in life, and her blonde hair was as long as it might once have been, there was no mistaking the Spirit's face.

"You are Fantine," Javert said hoarsely. "Why have you come here?"

The Spirit smiled. "I am the Ghost of Christmas Past," she said. "And I am here for your welfare."

"My - _my_ welfare?" Javert sat up properly, swinging his legs off the bed. "I daresay a good night's sleep would be of greater use, there."

The Ghost of Fantine laughed, and the sound which came out was like tiny silver bells. "Your salvation, then," she offered. "I have much to show you. Take my hand."

She extended her arm, and Javert stood before approaching her with some trepidation.

"It is late," he began. "And cold. My coat -"

"You will not need it," the Ghost assured him, and she rested her hand on Javert's shoulder. "Come with me, now."

Fantine did not so much walk as she did glide, pulling Javert inexorably along with her toward the window.

"But, ah, Mademoiselle..." Javert offered, thinking it wise to be polite to the Spirit, "I cannot go that way."

"You shall," Fantine told him serenely. "Never mind falling, you are with me."

Not entirely reassured, Javert was therefore surprised when he passed through the wall like a ghost himself. The world into which they stepped was not, however, the rear of the tenement's lot, nor even the street beyond, but another place entirely. The pair of them, man and Ghost, stood outside a dreary stone structure; a dusting of snow covered the bare earth, and the wind had stripped the trees of all their foliage. The sea was not within view, but the smell of salt hung in the air nevertheless.

Javert, taking this in, whirled about.

"I did not come with you to be mocked," he hissed.

His anger did not seem to disturb Fantine. She said only, "I do not mock."

Eyes narrowing, Javert demanded, "To what other purpose would you bring me here?"

"You know this place, then?" Fantine asked mildly.

"Know it?" Javert huffed his disgust. "As if I could forget it."

The Ghost of Fantine drew closer to the door before turning over her shoulder to beckon him nearer.

"I have no need of this," Javert objected, scowling.

Fantine beckoned a second time, and said, "What lies within are merely the shades of the past. They will have no consciousness of your presence. There is nothing to fear here but self-reflection."

As it would happen, self-reflection was an activity which Javert did his utmost to avoid, believing it to inspire little besides doubt. He saw no easy way to refuse the Ghost, however, and the gendarmes' dire warning remained in his thoughts, and so it was that with great reluctance, he followed after Fantine into the prison.

They entered into a small vestibule; it was not properly an antechamber, a space meant only for utility and not for impressing visitors. Nothing in the establishment was intended to impress, except perhaps to impress with the vice of man. To the right of the door was a desk. The guard attending it was asleep, his feet propped up on the surface, and an empty bottle lay on the floor beside him. A torch on the wall gave the space light; but for this, the room was bare.

From this underwhelming entry led a corridor, on either side of it being lines of iron bars. The cells were subdivided by walls of the same stone as the exterior, and into each, a single high-mounted window allowed for a little light.

Fantine made as if to again urge him forward, but Javert brushed her off.

"I know the way," he said brusquely.

Down the hall he walked, followed by his ethereal companion. It seemed that the Ghost was correct in her assessment - the few prisoners they passed appeared entirely unconscious of their presence, and Javert's boots made no sound against the cold floor. When he stopped, it was in front of the last cell on the left side. Javert looked, and an indescribable countenance came over him.

Leaning against the bars of the cell, holding fast to them with tiny hands, was a little boy. His hair was dark and unruly, and his wide eyes watched the hall with a sort of intensity. Behind him, and with her back to the wall, was a woman. She had the same dark hair and skin as the child, and her face betrayed a sort of melancholy. Her skirt hid her legs, which were drawn up to her chest, and she stared vacantly into the air even as the little one spoke.

"Mama," said the child, "will Père Noël bring me a coin for my shoe?"

At that, the boy's mother gave a sharp laugh. "You'll be lucky enough if he doesn't give you a switch across the backside, never mind a coin."

At this, the child simply sighed. "He never leaves coins," he grumbled.

"And you've never taken a switching, either," answered back his mother. "So count your blessings."

In the hall, Fantine rested one transparent hand against Javert's shoulder, where it left a faint pulse of warmth.

"A prison is no place for a child," she said softly.

Javert jerked his head. "It is the only place," he asserted. "My mother broke the law selling fortunes to seedy men, and she was arrested. Prison is the proper home for street filth. It did not matter that she was pregnant."

"Didn't it?"

Javert might have replied, had not his child-self turned then from the bars to toddle across the floor to the dish of food resting in the corner. It was half-finished, a plate of gruel and a few lumps of meat.

"Don't touch that," Javert's mother chided. "I told you, it is an offering for the _mule_. Remember why?"

"I know," responded the child Javert. "So they won't haunt us. Don't worry, mama, I'm only looking."

"Hardly a Christmas feast," the Ghost of Fantine observed.

"Prison food is meant to feed, not to be enjoyed," said Javert. A trace of something like discomfort crossed his face. "I still do not see why you brought me here."

"Then watch," Fantine answered.

At her words, time seemed to hasten in its progression, so that the years passed one into the other. When they slowed, there was only one person left in the cell; Javert had become properly a boy - older, taller, and skinnier. He did not sit, but stood as though waiting for something.

"Your mother?" Fantine prompted.

"Dead," Javert answered. "A few days before Christmas. She died in her sleep - frozen to death, maybe. It took the guards hours to do anything about her body."

Even as he said as much, one of the guards strode down the hall, passing through the Ghost and the adult Javert as if they were empty air. The guard stopped in front of the last cell, and looked over the boy inside.

"Well," said the guard, "your request has been approved. Though how you think you're going to make it in the Academy, I can't imagine."

"You'll see," said the boy. "I'll work harder than anyone."

The guard opened the door to the cell and walked over to where a little plate of food rested in the corner. He turned it over with his boot.

"If you want to amount to anything, you better quit it with this folk nonsense. Besides, there's no such thing as ghosts."

The boy Javert looked at the guard and nodded before stepping out into the corridor a little uncertainly.

Not keen to be walked through again, the adult Javert moved back against the wall, explaining as he did so, "I was unpopular with the other inmates - I'd report on them if they were breaking the rules - but the guards liked me for it. When I decided I wanted to join the Police Academy, they laughed, but they put in the application for me."

Fantine hummed. "And how did you spend Christmas in that place?"

"I'm sure you mean to show me," Javert said sourly.

Fantine's smile broadened in answer, and the world around them dissolved. When it resolidified, they were standing in a mess hall. It was empty but for a now-familiar looking boy, who sat at one of the long tables amidst a pile of books and papers.

"I was the youngest one there," Javert said. "The others were at least two or three years my senior. I had a lot of catching up to do."

"Even on Christmas?"

Javert turned his head. "A holiday is no excuse to get behind."

"But it was lonely, surely."

Javert pursed his lips. "No more so than any other day of the year."

As they watched, a pair of older recruits stumbled into the hall, their cheeks red with cold and coats feathered with snow.

"Oi, Javert!" said one. "Won't you come out and play? Jacques found an old metal sheet, it's perfect for sledding!"

"Aw, don't bother," retorted his fellow, giving his friend a shove. "Javert never plays with anyone. He thinks he's too good for us."

"That's a lie," snorted the first boy. "I know where you come from, street rat."

At that, the little Javert turned faintly pink, looking over his shoulder to say, "If you don't mind, I'm trying to study."

"Go on and study, then," the first boy taunted. "Little good that'll do you. Blood will out in the end." Laughing with each other, the two students went back out into the snow.

"They were wrong, of course," the older Javert said emotionlessly. "I graduated at the top of my class."

Fantine extended her hand. "There is one other place I wish to show you."

"Must we?"

"It is to your own benefit."

Once more, the world around them changed, settling into the form of a street. Montreuil-sur-Mer was beautiful at Christmastide, and garlands hung with tinsel above every storefront. Seeing their surroundings, Javert's face tightened.

He grew still less pleased when it became apparent they were standing in front of a large factory. It, too, was decorated for the season, and a number of ladies and gentlemen moved toward the doors to get inside. Among the small crowd, Javert spotted himself: a man, now, in uniform. His younger self wore a similar expression of distaste, and appeared to approach the entrance with reluctance. The older Javert opened his mouth, but whatever argument he might have put forward, he thought better of. Instead, he resignedly followed after his younger shade as he entered the factory.

Inside, the tables that were usually in place for the making of black glass trinkets had been pushed to the perimeter to make way for the Christmas party that was unfolding. The factory workers, men and women alike, were dressed as finely as they could muster, and a fiddler in the corner kept up a fast-paced tune. Some danced, and some ate, for surely there was no shortage of food to be had.

Among the attendees walked a singular figure, about whom converged a great many excited and grateful people. His hair was black, and his waistcoat the color of holly. For everyone he had a smile, a good word, and a generosity of spirit. The Javert of both past and present fixed their attention on this individual; the older Javert felt his hands ball into fists.

He followed his younger self as he cut a path through the crowd. It was not difficult; the man had a reputation, and people were keen to get out of his way. Soon, Javert was the only one standing near to the black-haired man.

"Good evening, Monsieur Mayor," said the younger Javert, standing at attention.

Unlike his guests, the mayor was unperturbed by the officer; the soft smile lighting his face did not change as he replied, "Good evening, Javert. I am glad that you made it. I was not sure you would come."

The younger Javert dipped his head deferentially. "If the Mayor extends an invitation, it is not my place to refuse it."

Watching this, the older Javert stewed in frustration.

"Valjean," he growled under his breath. "I suspected him even then, you know," he added to the Ghost. "But I had not the proof to arrest him."

"Quiet," Fantine admonished. "You are missing the point."

"- not have to accept any invitation of mine, Javert," Valjean, who called himself Madeleine, was saying. "But it seems a waste that anyone should be working Christmas Eve when there is fellowship to be had."

The younger Javert tossed his head. "I have little use for fellowship," he said. "And, if you'll pardon my saying so, the town would be better-served were I out on the streets."

"Don't be ridiculous," the man called Madeleine replied, clapping him on the back. "Why, I could not conscience hosting a Christmas party without inviting the most distinguished officer in Montreuil-sur-Mer. Go on, then, Javert, have a drink and a bite to eat at least."

"If Monsieur the Mayor insists..."

"I do," said the Mayor. "And Javert... Merry Christmas."

With that, the Mayor turned and walked away, leaving the younger Javert looking on in consternation and the older in anger.

"He thought to lull me into service without suspicion," said the latter to Fantine. "He played at being the town benefactor, but it was nothing more than a façade."

The Ghost of Fantine shook her head. "You misunderstand. He perceived the threat you posed, yes, but never had anything but good will towards you."

"That," pronounced Javert, "is absurd. Valjean has never done anything without it being to his own benefit."

"There you are wrong," said Fantine. "If I can prove as much, will you at least consider what has been said here?"

Javert snorted. "By all means," he answered dryly.

"The same evening, then," announced Fantine, "but later, after the party."

Once more, the scene melted into a swirl of colors, turning darker, more grim. Now the pair stood in an alley, which was perhaps near the boat docks; that is to say, they had materialized in the poorer of Montreuil's neighborhoods.

The tenements there went up several looming stories, their windows shuttered - and in some places, nailed - closed. The alley smelled of spirits and sickness, and the nearest street lamp was smashed. All told, it was less than a pretty picture, and Javert wrinkled his nose. He turned to Fantine, but she shook her head and pointed down the alley toward the street.

"Look," she said, and Javert looked.

In short order, a man turned down the alley; he raised his head to get his bearings, and it was plain that this was again Valjean. Though his dress was the same, his mannerisms were utterly different from those at the Christmas party. He was more furtive, his motions practiced and quiet, and Javert could tell he was scanning the vicinity for observers.

Then Valjean went up to the nearest door and removed a small penknife from his pocket. This he opened, and inserted the blade into the keyhole. Javert turned to look incredulously at Fantine, but she waved him back. Crossing his arms, Javert watched Valjean twist the knob, and then jimmy the knife between the lock plate and door jamb. With a click, the door pushed open. Quite unable to believe that he was watching Valjean break into and enter a house, Javert needed no encouragement to trail after his adversary. If nothing else, he reasoned, the night might reveal more charges to stack against the man.

The apartment into which Valjean had stolen was plainly ill-kept; the interior had the look and scent of mildew, the plaster lath was cracked in no less than three places, and the furniture looked like it might collapse if looked at the wrong way. What Valjean meant to acquire in such a place, Javert could not have said - except that, Valjean was taking nothing. He was, instead, removing an assortment of coins from his own pocket and depositing them on the nearest tabletop.

Stunned, Javert watched Valjean check his surroundings once more and slip out the way he had come, allowing the lock to fall into place behind him. Javert ghosted through the wall into the street, only to see Valjean working open the lock on the next door down. In a growing mixture of bemusement and horror, Javert followed as Valjean broke into no fewer than five houses, leaving behind a small pile of money in each as the only sign he had ever been there.

Finally, the Ghost of Fantine pulled him aside.

"Have you seen enough?" she asked, and Javert had the sudden, sneaking suspicion that the Spirit was fighting back a smile.

"I don't understand," Javert said flatly. "What... why did you show me that?"

"You did not believe Valjean to be selfless," Fantine replied. "And yet, here he is, leaving money for the less fortunate in a place where they will find it, but will never know who left it. There is no reward for him in this, not even further acclaim to 'ensure his reputation'. It was done only to help."

"You..." Javert struggled with this for a second. "You are misrepresenting this, it is the only way. There has to be another motive, just not one that can be seen here."

"No," Fantine told him, and for the first time, her voice sounded cold. "I am tasked with portraying the truth, exactly as it was. It is not I obstructing the truth, here, only your own prejudice." She looked up into the dark sky for a moment, as if considering something. "Time grows short," she said. "There is one night yet to visit."

"Perhaps I do not wish to," Javert contended.

"Your wish is immaterial," Fantine informed him. "I say again, time is short."

As though moved by the urgency of her words, the world around them spun again, faster than before. The night deposited them upon a sidewalk across the road from a small café, whereat a local dandy was loitering. He stood, dressed in a heavy cloak over an unnecessary number of vests, and with a narrow-brimmed _morillo_ hat upon his head. He was also smoking, as was the fashion. That winter's night, there was a heavy snowfall upon the ground, and the stray flake in the air. For a moment, everything was stillness.

Around the corner then appeared a woman, obviously destitute. She wore nothing but a gown in the freezing air, and her hair was cropped unevenly, close to her scalp. She walked, as silent as the night around her, down the sidewalk. Her gait was mechanical, suggesting that she had been pacing thusly for some time. As she approached the man, he lifted his head to issue the following pronouncement:

"How ugly you are! Will you not get out of my sight?"

The woman said nothing, only turned and walked back the way she had come. She disappeared around the corner of the café, only to reappear minutes later, wearing a track into the snow. As she again approached the man, he offered another insult, this one pertaining to her teeth. Again, she spoke nothing. Back and forth she paced, between the side street and the café, and every time she came near the man, who was called M. Bamatabois, he offered some fresh, cruel witticism.

Where he stood next to the Ghost, Javert found himself growing more and more uncomfortable.

When this had gone on for several repetitions like clockwork, Bamatabois found himself apparently discontented with the woman's lack of response. And so, as she once more approached him, only to turn around as she had done before, the man bent to the pavement and scooped up a fistful of snow. He next crept up behind the woman, and shoved the snow down the back of her dress.

The change was immediate. The woman, whom the reader has no doubt long-since recognized as Fantine, spun around with a howl and struck her attacker across the face. Drawn to the sound of a fight, passersby and café patrons alike collected to watch what had become a full-fledged altercation. But even as the situation escalated further, a tall figure pushed through the crowd and dragged Fantine away by the bodice.

"Follow me," commanded the figure, and Javert was forced to once again recognize his younger self.

While the younger officer hauled the distraught Fantine down the road to the station house, his older self turned to the Ghost.

"Mademoiselle, I - I didn't -"

The Ghost of Fantine looked at him expressionlessly. "Do not tell me you didn't know."

"But I -"

"Must I remind you of your own words to me?" Fantine interrupted. "I can, you know."

Whatever Power permitted the Ghost's actions that night proceeded to reshape the world to show Javert the police station, where the wretch of the living Fantine was curled on the floor before the younger officer.

"...Has anyone the right to put snow down our backs when we are walking along peaceably?" she was asking, tears streaming down her face. "I am rather ill, as you see. Do me the favor today, for this once, Monsieur Javert. Hold! Oh, my Cosette! What will become of her, poor creature? There is a little girl who will be turned out into the street to get along as best she may, in the heart of winter." She pleaded thusly, between sobs and a repetitive, dry cough, but the officer was unmoved.

"Come," said the young Javert. "Have you entirely finished? You will get six months; the Eternal Father in person could do nothing more."

"Mercy!" came the final, pitiful cry, but Javert turned his back, and his subordinates dragged Fantine to her feet.

Everything blurred, though it did not yet fade, as the Ghost turned once more to face the Javert of the present.

"Well, Monsieur?" she asked pointedly.

Javert, for his part, managed to look abashed. "It... would seem that your account was quite truthful," he admitted.

"Quite." The Ghost of Fantine looked at him critically. "And as for what happened after..."

"If you are referring to Valjean's interference -"

"I am referring to the night at the hospital."

Javert was silent for a moment. "Ah," he said eventually. "As for that?"

"As for that..." Fantine said slowly, "these are the shadows of things that Are, at your own doing. They cannot be changed."

"Then where is the use in pointing them out?" came the short reply.

Fantine cocked her head to the side. "That is for you to determine."

Javert pivoted on his heel, pressing his hand to his face. "Take me back," he said. "Leave me be. Haunt me no longer."

"I have shown you all I may," said the Ghost. "My time here is ended. But be ready, for remember, I am not the last Spirit to whom you must answer tonight."

Javert turned back, a retort already on his lips, but he instead found himself alone, and not in Montreuil-sur-Mer at all, but his own chambers, as instantly as he had left them. Swaying on his feet, Javert scarcely made it across the room before his legs gave out in exhaustion and he fell into bed. Sleep took him immediately, swallowing consciousness whole.


	3. Stave 3: The Second of the Three Spirits

**A/N:** Pieces of dialogue in this chapter (and I suppose a few fragments in the last chapter as well) are taken from the Brick for authenticity's sake.

* * *

Stave Three: The Second of the Three Spirits

How long he slept, Javert could not have said, but when he opened his eyes, it was to the sound of chimes; inexplicably, the hour of one o'clock was once again ringing out. Certain that he was at any minute to be accosted by another Spirit, Javert took matters into his own hands. He climbed out of bed and stood to wait at the foot of it. The clock finished its chiming, resumed its soft ticking, and no Spirit appeared.

Warily, Javert looked around. What form the Spirit would take, he did not know, and he tried to make himself ready for anything. That was when he spied the light coming through the crack under his bedroom door. Certain there had been no light left in the living space when he had gone to bed, Javert padded across the room to stealthily twist open the knob.

Peering around the door leaf, Javert beheld an odd sight. The room into which he was looking was undoubtedly his own, yes, but it had undergone a most profound transformation. A roaring fire lit up the fireplace, and boughs of holly and ivy were draped across every available surface, though what constituted "available" was contested by a massive spread of food; roasted turkeys and ducks; puddings and stews; cakes shaped like logs and plates piled with vegetables; all this and more spilled over from the dining table to the floor. Javert was not sure he had ever seen so much to eat in one place before.

At the center of it all sat a being who was the very picture of contentment. His hair was thin and white, but his cheeks held a rosy color, and his eyes sparkled. The Ghost, for it could be no other, wore a robe the same white as his hair, and a wreath rested on the crown of his head.

"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost upon seeing Javert. "Come in, my good man!"

Javert was not a timid individual by any stretch of the imagination, but a tentativeness came about him now which was itself unusual. He entered the room slowly, and when he stopped near the dining table, he did not meet the Spirit's eyes.

The Ghost stood and came around to meet him, looking Javert up and down.

"Yes," he said thoughtfully. "Yes, I see. You have never met one of my kind, have you?"

"Your pardon," answered Javert, "but I do not believe I know you."

The Spirit smiled. "I am the Ghost of Christmas Present. One of hundreds," he said. "In life, I was called Bienvenu Myriel."

A trace of a frown puckered Javert's mouth. "It seems to me I know that name," he said. Eyes widening, he added, "You aren't the same Bishop Bienvenu who Jean Valjean robbed of his silver pieces?"

The Ghost's smile turned gentler. "I _was_ the same Bishop who gifted Monsieur Valjean with pieces of silver, yes."

Feeling heat rise to his face, Javert responded only with an, "Ah".

"Now," said the Ghost of the Bishop, clapping his hands together, "where shall we go?"

"Monseigneur," Javert replied, "I will leave that to your discretion. Certainly you know better than I what I should see."

Chuckling affably, the Ghost nodded. "Very well, then," he said. "Take hold of my robe, and we shall see what we shall see."

No sooner had Javert done so than the room, the firelight, and the food all vanished. They stood instead in the street, at the very heart of Paris. Dawn was breaking over the skyline, and there arose a clamor from the front of every rowhouse as residents scraped snow and ice from their front stoops. A block away, a collection of urchins were engaged in throwing snowballs at each other.

"This is Christmas morning," said the Ghost of the Bishop.

"So I see," Javert replied acerbically. It would have been hard to miss what day it was, for every person who passed another offered a holiday greeting.

"Soon, these shall go to church," the Ghost announced, gesturing with a sweep of his arm. "But there are others here who will not, and yet it is Christmas for them, too. See?"

He led Javert down an alley. In between the tall brick buildings, and behind a pile of debris, a mother sat with a little boy next to a small fire. Their clothes were worn and patched; both shivered in the brisk winter air.

"Here," said the mother, holding an orange out to the child. "They're very sweet this year." The boy took the fruit and began to peel it eagerly, even as the mother moved closer to the warmth of the flames.

Javert made a face. "Stolen, no doubt," he muttered under his breath.

"Purchased, actually," the Ghost corrected reprovingly. "From the grocer on the corner, with the last of the money she made mending aprons. She spent the rest on new shoes for the child. There won't be any more aprons to mend for some time, so now she is out of work."

Javert dropped his gaze, and said nothing.

"Another place, perhaps?" suggested the Ghost, raising an eyebrow. "Tell me, haven't you any invitations to respond to?"

With a dismissive scoff, Javert looked away. "Hardly," he said. "I am not what you would call good company. I suppose," he added as an afterthought, "that Monsieur the Secretary Chabouillet suggested I might drop by, but I do not believe he expects me to do so."

"Chabouillet, you say?" the Ghost repeated. "Very well. Shall we see how the Secretary spends his Christmas Day?"

Before Javert could respond, the alleyway disappeared, and instead they stood outside an old country château. The gardens were covered over with snow, and icicles hung from the eaves, but light poured from the inside, along with the sounds of laughter and a piano playing. Javert said something about "impropriety" and "spying on his superior officer", but he still followed the Ghost of the Bishop up the drive to the door.

The pair passed through the wall like a breath of warm air, for they were still quite invisible, and found themselves in the Secretary's grand antechamber. To the right was a salon from which the sounds of the party emanated, and so it was to this that they turned their attention.

The salon was outfitted with the finest décor; the cream-colored walls were accented by panels of reveillon wallpaper in gold and blue hues, which were themselves framed by delicate plaster scrollwork and festoons. The partygoers, of whom there were many, lounged on richly upholstered chairs and settees; the style was monarchical, and though it was in excess of Javert's desires, it pleased him to see it nonetheless.

Chabouillet sat in a bergére chair next to the fireplace. Nearby was his wife, who entertained an assortment of family friends, while Chabouillet himself greeted a collection of officers from the station, who, if their ruddy faces and windswept hair were anything by which to judge, had only just arrived.

The Secretary laughed heartily. "It is good to see you, Messieurs," he said, rising from his seat to shake their hands. "Glad you could make it. Were the roads bad?"

One of the officers, who was called Allard, shook his head. "Not bad at all," he replied, "especially compared to last year."

One of his fellows, grinning at the memory, added, "Oh yes, not nearly so bad as last year, when poor Castile got stuck in a snowdrift."

The one called Castile shoved the speaker good-naturedly, and Chabouillet gestured to the nearest collection of chairs that they might sit before retaking his spot in his own place.

"But tell me," the Secretary began, "did you see Javert on the road? I know he hasn't any wife or children to spend the day with."

Glancing sidelong at one another, it was ultimately Allard who responded. "No, Monsieur," he said. "And, I wouldn't count on seeing him, either. He seems thoroughly disinclined to be sociable. I invited him to drinks not long after he transferred here, and he looked at me like I'd offended his family name."

"Oh?" Chabouillet looked at him mildly. "Well, perhaps he's not as pleasant as he might be, but there's no doubt he's a fine officer."

"Sure, there's no disputing that," offered Castile. "He'll be made Inspector before I'm given a third assignment to lead, I'll bet anyone ten francs."

"A lot of good it may do him," Allard said with dry humor. "Though I find it hard to see how that is to make up the deficit in his personality."

Chabouillet shrugged magnanimously. "Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself, only. If he will not join us for dinner, well then, the loss of a pleasant meal is his alone."

"Hear, hear!" chimed in another of the officers.

"Now," said the Secretary, "let us have some music. Where did Marie get off to?" Calling for his niece, Chabouillet had her strike up the piano again, at which she played a merry round of Good King Wenceslas.

Javert watched these things unfold with a grimace on his face. He was not precisely hurt, or at least he told himself that he was not, but it was also not as easy as it usually was to pride himself on his cold and uncompromising exterior. He could tell the Ghost was watching him, and this, too, compounded his dis-ease.

"As I told you," said Javert, "I'm hardly good company."

The Ghost of the Bishop inclined his head. "And yet, it seems to me that that need not remain the case, if only you were to make something of an effort."

Shifting on his feet, Javert looked again at where Chabouillet was now offering his guests drinks. "You are a very optimistic Spirit," was his only reply.

"Maybe," the Ghost said musingly. "It is time, perhaps, to see Christmas outside of Paris."

Javert looked at him questioningly. "I take it you have somewhere in mind?"

The inquiry brought a light to the eyes of the Bishop's Ghost. "I do believe I have," he said. "Go, then, take my arm. This, I think, shall be educational."

Javert got a last look at his superior officer's home before they were once more transported. The world resolved itself into a place Javert did not recognize, and so he was left to examine the small town for himself. They stood in a wide square, which branched into a collection of roads and alleys; around the perimeter of the square and extending into the largest alley was an open-air market, which sold all manner of trinkets and treasures for the Christmas season. At the closest end of that alley was an inn. The sign hanging above the door marked it as such, and declared its name to be Waterloo.

"Where are we?" Javert asked the Spirit, perhaps more brusquely than was required.

The Spirit, if he noticed, was unbothered; he replied, "Montfermeil." At this, Javert nodded, orienting himself. The Spirit continued, pointing, "Let us investigate the inn."

They entered into the establishment, as unseen as ever. The Waterloo Inn was occupied by a raucous crowd, all travelers and peddlers in need of lodgings and a bottle of some strength. Amid them hustled a large woman who had a formidable appearance. Evidently a proprietress of the inn, she distributed mutton and wine readily, and she collected coin just as readily. Javert glanced around, massively unimpressed and uncertain what he was meant to gain by this, when his attention was drawn by a much smaller figure. As he watched, he found it to be a child darting underneath and between tables, utterly ignored by those who were seated.

Javert's eyes narrowed, for at first he took the little one for some manner of gamin, snuck inside to pick the pockets of the travelers. He quickly came to realize his mistake, however, for the child was not engaged in thievery but in cleaning, and then when the floor had all been swept, with knitting. A look to the side told Javert that the Ghost of the Bishop was also watching this child attentively, and so surmising that this was what they had come for, Javert approached.

The child, and Javert saw it was a little girl, had seated herself under an unoccupied table near to the fireplace. She had taken up the production of a stocking, but this did not hold the officer's attention. What did catch his eye was her shabby dress, which was so worn and riddled with holes that it seemed a misnomer to call it clothing at all, and the hollow, bony quality to her features. Then she shifted to work out a snag in her yarn, and the firelight revealed a mottling of bruises across her arm.

Javert had crouched to better observe this; now he stood, and the look he cast across the room towards the woman was the sort that made grown men tremble. He had no time to speak anything of it to the Ghost, however, for at that moment, the door opened and into the room came an irate patron.

"- horse has not been watered!" he decried, catching the woman's attention.

"Yes, it has," said the woman irritably.

"I tell you, it has not," retorted the man. "Come, this won't do at all, let my horse be watered, and let that be the end of it!"

"In truth, that is fair!" the woman conceded. "If the beast has not been watered, then it must be." She looked about her muttering, "Where's that other beast?" until she spotted the child, who by now was cowering back against the table leg. "Are you coming?" she asked impatiently.

Slowly, the girl crawled out from under the table and stood.

The woman placed her hands on her hips. "Mademoiselle Dog, go and water that horse."

"But, Madame," the girl protested haltingly, "there is no water."

Throwing open the front door, the woman shouted, "Well, go and get some, then!"

Cringing in upon herself, the girl immediately fled to the corner where a bucket half her size lay discarded, dashing right through Javert as she did so. Grabbing hold of the handle, she dragged the bucket out into the night.

Javert turned toward the Ghost. "A disgraceful business," he pronounced.

The Ghost nodded in solemn agreement. "That," he said, nodding towards the door the girl had just exited, "is one who has not much time left in this world. My provision is the Present, not the Future, and yet unless some occurrence should amend this reality, I foresee nothing but darkness ahead of her."

Frowning, Javert found his hands in his pockets, a gesture and stance which was unusual for him, as it bespoke distraction.

"It is unfortunate," he said. "But what is anyone to do about it? The law makes no provision for the protection of children."

The Ghost met his gaze, and a small twinkle shone in his eye.

"Fortunately, all is not lost," he said. "It so happens that there is another traveler in Montfermeil tonight who has not yet reached the inn."

Javert's brow creased. "I do not see how that -"

"Peace," the Ghost interrupted. "Let us follow the child."

He took Javert's arm and they found themselves in the midst of the forest that lay between Montfermeil and Chelles. The girl, and she could have been no older than eight, was ahead of them, picking out a path through the stones and tree roots. Occasionally she stumbled, which must have been made still less pleasant by the fact that she was barefoot. The trees were old and dark, and they blotted out what light there might have been to have at the stars' dispense. She seemed to know her way, but she startled at small sounds, and did not lift her head but rather kept her eyes fixed firmly on the earth.

Eventually, she reached the spring to which she had been sent. Wasting no time, the girl clung onto the trunk of a small oak and leaned over the basin to scoop water into the bucket. It took all the strength she had to pull it up, and no sooner had she deposited it upon the ground than she collapsed in exhaustion. Around that small clearing, a wicked wind picked up, moaning and shrieking as it blew through the bare tree branches. Where she lay in the dead grasses, the girl shrank still further from the Sublime, the sheer unbridled power of nature.

In her terror, the urge to run soon outweighed the urge to hide. The girl picked herself up; she hesitated, and it was clear she did not dare leave the bucket behind. She took hold of it, but filled as it was with water, she could scarcely move it a few yards before she had to set it down. In this manner, she hobbled back the way she had come, seen only by the two phantoms, one a man and one a Ghost in truth, who trailed after her. At least, it seemed she went unseen, and yet she had only just started again on her way after pausing when a giant of a man loomed out of the darkness.

Seeing this, Javert was brought up short. Surely no further misfortune could come upon that wretch of a child?

The giant, who was broad in shoulder and not short in stature, said nothing, and made no move except to promptly take the weight of the bucket.

The girl, for her part, looked up; for the first time all night, she did not startle.

"My child, what you are carrying is very heavy for you," the giant man said. His voice was gravelly, and familiar to Javert.

The officer looked with new perspective at the silhouette of the man at the child's side, and came to a sudden, jarring conclusion.

"You must be joking," Javert hissed, shooting a glare in the direction of the Bishop's Ghost. "You cannot be serious in this!"

The Ghost might have been amused had not the circumstances been so dire. "I assure you," he replied, "that I am neither making light nor meaning to aggravate. Watch closely, now."

The man, whom Javert had quite correctly recognized as Jean Valjean, was kneeling to get a better look at the little one he had encountered.

"What is your name?" he asked.

Replied the child, "Cosette."

This seemed to surprise Valjean, but the shock which came over Javert at that one word worked its way to his core. He had not forgotten - and indeed, had been oh-so-recently reminded of - the woman Fantine whose child Valjean had professed a desire to procure from the town of Montfermeil. Javert was ill-suited to the feeling of guilt, and yet something of it gnawed at him now. Try as he might, he could not stave off an echo of the First Ghost's words to him: "These are the things that Are, at your own doing".

Javert came out of his reverie to find the two still speaking.

"Who sent you at such an hour to get water in the forest?" Valjean asked.

"It was Madame Thénardier," Cosette answered.

"What does your Madame Thénardier do?" Valjean next inquired. Javert was uncertain, and yet there sounded to be a tremor to Valjean's voice.

"She is my mistress," Cosette explained. "She keeps the inn."

"The inn?" repeated Valjean. "Well, I am going to lodge there tonight. Show me the way."

"We are on the way there."

They moved down the path side by side, Valjean having entirely appropriated the bucket to carry himself, and Cosette stepping along apace like a disproportionate shadow. Javert followed close behind, determined now to not let Valjean out of his sight. He was decidedly ignoring the Ghost, who looked upon Valjean with a certain softness.

They arrived at the inn. Cosette quickly took back her bucket and knocked. The door flew open to reveal Mme. Thénardier, who was plainly in a state.

"Ah! So it's you, you little wretch! Good mercy, but you've taken your time!"

Cosette shivered and backed up to take Valjean's hand. "Madame," she said, "here's a man who wants a lodging."

Mme. Thénardier's bearing changed all at once, suddenly full of smiles and platitudes that were somehow still as disconcerting as her rages. Valjean allowed himself to be led to a table, from where he watched Cosette. The girl returned presently to her table, which she sat under, and again took up her knitting.

It was not long, however, before Cosette's attention wandered, tired as she was, and Mme. Thénardier was swift to notice.

"So, that is the way you work!" she cried. "I'll make you work to the tune of the whip, I will!"

Javert, who stood as a wraith by the fire, crossed his arms and waited to see what would happen next. Valjean looked up, and the officer wondered just how far he meant to intervene.

"Bah, Madame," said Valjean. "Let her play."

The woman made a face. "She must work, since she eats," came the acidic response. "I don't feed her to do nothing."

"What is she making?"

"Stockings for my little girls, who have none."

Valjean and Javert, each unconscious of the other, looked in unison at Cosette's bare feet, which were reddened with cold.

"Will you sell them for five francs?" Valjean went on.

Mme. Thénardier and her husband, who to this point had been employed entertaining his customers, both gaped at this query, and Javert felt inclined to do the same. It was an absurd sum to pay for a child's stocking.

"But," said the Ghost, touching Javert on the arm, "it isn't really about the stocking, is it?"

The Thénardiers accepted the money ungraciously and did not so much allow as command Cosette to play in her corner. The evening continued in this pattern; every time Cosette did anything to displease - which is to say, any time she behaved as a little girl and not a servant - she was chastised and threatened, and every time Valjean made some new purchase of the Thénardiers to allow her to continue. He even went so far as to walk out to one of the street vendors, whereat he purchased a fine china doll for the girl. The entire tavern was by this point perplexed into amazement.

Javert, who watched each new development with unfaltering vigilance, could not decide if he were satisfied by the Thénardiers' increasing vexation or if he were furious with Valjean for being right in front him and yet out of reach; he pointedly ignored the small inner voice suggesting that maybe for once Valjean was on the right side of things. He also did not look at the Ghost, who seemed aware of this internal struggle, and who clearly was for Valjean's absolution.

It was late into the evening before Valjean took any dinner, and then he asked only for bread with butter. Before he ate, the Ghost of the Bishop raised his hand in benediction; Valjean paused what he was doing and looked up. An inquisitive frown tugged at his features and his eyes lingered for a moment on the place where the Bishop stood before sliding over to his left. Had Javert been visible to him, they would have locked gazes in that moment. As it was, Javert had the unsettling experience of being stared through, and Valjean gave a small twitch, the sort which inspires the phrase, somebody walking over one's grave.

Evening had long since become night when Valjean retired to his room, which he would doubtless be charged exorbitantly for come morning. The pair of wraiths followed him, stopping at the door. Javert turned to the Ghost, who he saw was becoming yet more aged. Did he intend them to stand there while Valjean slept? But the Ghost shook his head and pointed.

Valjean, it seemed, was not inclined to sleep. He slipped noiselessly back out of his room and looked around. As one, all three heard the sound of a child's soft cry from down the hall. Valjean turned toward this like a moth to a flame and traced after it. He quickly found the dingy corner in which Cosette slept fitfully, clutching her first and only doll to her chest.

Valjean's face held a mixture of emotions, all of which spelled out a sort of heartbrokenness for the child's sake; Javert found himself looking away. That was when his eye caught on something else, a couple of shoes sitting next to the dark fireplace. He guessed at their purpose, and without quite knowing what inspired his sudden idea, he turned around and said plainly, "Valjean!"

By all rights, and in accordance with the rules beset by this most unusual of evenings, Valjean should not have heard him. And yet, by some power, Valjean looked up in confusion. He shook his head, not unlike he had a ringing in his ears, and then he too noticed the little shoes. He tiptoed across the floor to them and knelt; gratified that his moment of inspiration had taken the desired effect, Javert crouched as well.

They were girls' shoes, to be sure, but not ones ever worn by Cosette. No, one belonged to each of the Thénardiers' daughters, Éponine and Azelma, and each held a silver coin.

"Gifts from Pére Noël," Javert muttered. "I'd surmised as much."

Valjean appeared to come to the same conclusion. Looking more carefully, he spotted what Javert had missed: a third shoe, hidden in the back of the fireplace, made of wood and covered in mud.

"There is a shoe," the Ghost said softly, "that has never had a coin in it. And yet, the little one still has hope, and sets it out anyway."

Valjean, considering the shoe, drew from his pocket a golden louis d'or and tucked it into the toe, before replacing it in its hiding space. He stood, presumably to return to bed, and left his invisible followers behind.

Javert was pleased, and was irritated with himself for being pleased.

"What?" he asked, noticing the Ghost's expression as he stood.

"You do not like that man," the Ghost observed.

"It is not a matter of liking," Javert retorted. "It is a matter of law and order. Knowing where he is, why! In the morning I should ride out to Montfermeil myself and arrest him."

"Do so and seal your own doom as well," pronounced the Ghost. "But I forgot - 'France will be a happier kingdom indeed when all her miscreants lay buried or in chains.' Never mind that to jail that man sentences not only him, but that little child, and the countless others who might have been benefited by his generosity. Such is the price for justice."

Javert grit his teeth. "I did not -"

The Ghost held up his hand. "You did not what? Know? Mean that? Care? Hear me - there is not a man or woman alive who is so disconnected from their fellows that their removal affects no-one. The workings of the world are made up of connections; embrace them, or be enchained by them."

Then the Ghost took hold of Javert's arm and the inn vanished. It was replaced by a Parisian street, which was dark but for a single street lamp. Over all, the bells were ringing out the midnight hour, and Javert beheld that now the Ghost was well and truly bent with age.

The officer raised an eyebrow. "Are Spirits' lives so short?" he asked.

The Ghost nodded. "My time here today is very brief. It ends at midnight - hark! The hour is drawing near."

The bells tolled, once, twice, three times.

"At midnight?" Javert asked in sudden alarm.

Four and then five times the bells rang.

"Just so," confirmed the Ghost. He pointed down the street, which Javert could see was called the Rue de la Chanvrerie. It ended in a plaza, from which now spilled a thick white fog. The fog billowed towards them in diaphanous strands, approaching slowly but steadily. The bells rang a sixth, seventh, and eighth time.

Just visible within the oncoming fog was a tall, slender shape outlined in black against the wispy mist. For the ninth time, the bells rang.

"Know compassion," urged the Ghost of the Bishop. "Reject ignorance, and above all, reject apathy. It is a clawed thing that will seize your heart and turn you from the people you are meant to serve."

"But," said Javert as the bells rang again, "what if -?"

The bells struck twelve. Javert turned to the Ghost, but as he watched, the Spirit faded. His final act was to point into the mist, where the dark figure stood waiting. Then the Bishop's Ghost was gone, and Javert was left alone in the Rue de la Chanvrerie with the Third Spirit.


	4. Stave 4: The Last of the Spirits

**A/N:** In keeping with both of the original works, this chapter goes to a pretty dark place. In case you aren't familiar with the thematic structure of _A Christmas Carol_ , allow me just to say - if material surrounding and discussing "Javert's derailment" is likely to be upsetting to you, give this chapter a miss.

* * *

Stave Four: The Last of the Spirits

The night was cold. Hitherto, Javert had felt quite comfortable, though he wore no coat. Just then, however, a chill swept through him, and he shivered. Down the street, the Third Spirit had halted in its advance; it stood unmoving in the mist, save for a hand, which it raised as if to say, "Come hither".

The cold moment passed, but Javert felt the dredges of it still in his bones. At the sign from the Spirit, he hurried forward. As he approached, he could make out more of that Phantom's appearance; it was dressed in a greatcoat, and the top hat on its head cast a deep shadow. Javert knew not whether it was by the hat's own properties or some greater power, but the shadow hid the Spirit's face entirely, and Javert could make out nothing of it.

Standing then at the Spirit's side, Javert was surprised to discover that it matched him precisely in height, and most puzzlingly of all, despite the freezing temperatures, the Spirit's coat had the appearance of being soaked through. It dripped occasionally, and where the droplets touched the ground, they evaporated into fog.

The Spirit said nothing.

"You are the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?" Javert asked.

The Ghost did not speak, but redirected its hand to point down the length of the Rue de la Chanvrerie from whence it had come.

Javert pressed, "You are to show me things that have not happened yet but will?"

At this, the Ghost nodded slowly. That was as much of an answer as it was willing to give. Javert felt his skin crawl - something about this Spirit was more unsettling than any of the others who had accosted him, and though he trusted it to show only truth, he was suddenly unsure how much more truth he wished to see.

There were a hundred things Javert wished to say - assurances that he would take heed, inquiries into where they were going - but he settled for, "Will you not speak to me?"

The Ghost stood frozen, pointing down the street.

"Very well," Javert said resignedly. "The night is waning, as is natural. Let us go, then."

At his words, the Ghost started forward, drifting noiselessly in the night. Javert followed after it, and tried not to tremble. Around them, the world shimmered and distorted, not nearly so smooth in its transformation as had been the workings of the other Ghosts.

All at once, their surroundings faded, and Javert was left standing in absolute darkness. He froze, and then turned slowly in a circle, wondering when and where he was. The visions which assaulted him, unanticipated, rose out of that darkness like mirages, flowing one into the next almost too quickly to process.

 _The Rue de la Chanvrerie was ransacked. A mountain of debris - furniture, paving stones, even an unfortunate carriage - clogged the bottleneck._

 _Next, a face came into focus, one Javert did not recognize except perhaps vaguely, and a voice asking, "Who are you?". Then he was bound to a pillar, laconic and unmoving._

 _Another face, and this one he knew too well - Valjean with a gun, and with a knife. Afterwards - but it passed too quickly to see how it happened - Javert's bonds were cut._

 _There followed a dissolution into inky blackness; it grew oppressive and hard to breathe. The feeling of cold returned, the sort of cold that creeps inside and cannot be thawed. He knew nothing, except that it be cold._

Javert then took another step, and found himself standing in the streets of Paris. It was midday, or so it seemed, and he blinked uncertainly. The Ghost stood beside him, as silent and foreboding as ever.

"Spirit," Javert inquired, and he could not entirely keep his voice from shaking, "just now, what was that I saw?"

The Ghost did not reply, except to point to where a trio of officers stood on a street corner. Hoping - and fearing - that these would give him an answer, Javert made his way across the intersection to see what the men had to say.

He realized as he did so where he was. The road he traversed was only just across the river from the Palais de Justice; to his left, the Pont au Change spanned the distance to the Île de la Cité. A number of buildings on the streetscape not yet built in his own time had thrown his sense of direction, but as he looked, it occurred to him that they were not far, either, from the offices of the Préfecture de Police.

As he approached the police-men, Javert was able to make out what they were saying.

"No," said the first man. "I don't know much about it either way. I only know he's dead."

Intrigued, a second man leaned forward. "When did he die?" he asked.

"A week ago, they think?" The first man shrugged. "It took them a while to fish the body out of the river, and the Prefect wouldn't give the _Moniteur_ the story right away."

"Huh." Apparently impressed with this tidbit, the second of the officers rocked backwards on his heels to lean against a light post.

"Who do you suppose they'll pick to fill his position?" asked the third man.

"God knows," replied the first of the officers. "Not me, I can tell you that much."

All three shared a hearty laugh at the very thought.

"Well, it's a shame about the funeral," the second man said thoughtfully. "They won't be having one, will they? At least, not if it's true what they're saying in the papers."

"It's true enough for the church if the Prefect believes it!" cried the third man, to whom the second conceded.

"All I'm saying," the second man continued, "is that I could have done with the free luncheon."

The other two pronounced their wholehearted agreement with this assessment, and then they disbanded, each to their own assignments. Javert was left standing at the corner, puzzled.

"Spirit," he began, glancing uneasily at the Ghost behind him, "surely that conversation was a trivial thing. I do not understand -"

The Ghost raised its hand, not to point this time but as if to lay a finger over its unseen lips. Javert broke off, and tried to ignore his increasing sense of apprehension. He looked around, but there was no hint of his future self anywhere by which to learn what the Ghost wished him to see.

The scene dissolved, smoothly this time, only to reform not far away on the Quai de la Corse underneath the Pont au Change. It was apparently a different day - the sun was lower on the horizon, barely showing through the overcast sky - and Javert wondered if there were any order to the things they were seeing, or if it was without pattern. A handful of rowboats, of the sort that belong to fishermen, bobbed in the silty grey water of the Seine.

Javert looked down and recoiled in disgust. Practically at his feet was a body lying on the boardwalk and covered over with a white sheet. Against the wall of the quay, a bored gendarme looked on, presumably keeping watch until someone came to investigate. No one else was there; no family, no friends, not even a curious fisherman to pay their respects.

The body lay in a puddle, and the sheet clung to it damply. There was no movement anywhere, nothing on which to fix his attention but the corpse.

Javert spoke lowly. "Spirit, why do you show me this?"

The Ghost at his side directed its hand toward the sheet, which was askew at the head, such that it could easily be pulled aside.

"Spirit," Javert repeated, "what does this drowned unfortunate have to do with me?"

The Ghost only emphasized its gesture, and Javert spared a body a quick look again before his eyes darted away.

"If you mean to suggest that I could come to share the fate of this individual..."

A sparrow fluttered down and landed on the riverbank. It pecked listlessly at the region of the corpse's thumb before taking off again. Javert looked another moment at the sheet and wondered if he had the capability in that vision of the future to raise it and see what lay beneath. More prudently, he wondered if he dared try. He thought too of the conversation he had overheard, and a horrible, sickly suspicion stole over him, which he immediately dismissed.

Hoping to escape the dregs of that unthinkable notion, he turned once more to the Ghost.

"Let us go, Spirit," he said. "Surely it does not do to linger here." Though he could not see the Ghost's face, Javert understood it to be looking at him, and so he continued, "If there is any person in this city who feels emotion at this man's death, show them to me."

The Ghost lifted the hem of its coat; for a moment, Javert had the impression of a great black wing. Then the future resolved itself to show another place and time, and the pair were standing in a dingy boarding-house room. The curtains were drawn across the window, so the little hovel was lit only by a smoky hearth.

In front of the fire sat a man in a chair perusing the newspaper. Javert took in that thin, ratty face, and spat, "Thénardier". Older, yes, and the worse for wear, but it was unmistakably the very same innkeeper and conman taking his leisure.

Thénardier turned the page, skimming it quickly until he was brought up short by whatever it was he saw written there. Bending down so as to have more light to read by, Thénardier looked again at the article that had caught his attention. Scarcely able to believe his eyes, the man read it a third time, and then let loose a high, malicious laugh.

"So the old wolf is dead," he chuckled, tearing the page out of the paper and tucking it into his breast pocket. "Well, well," he said. "Well, well, well."

Javert bit down on his lip. What was he to say to the fact that a man's death brought only indifference to the good and joy to the wicked? He turned to the Ghost, hoping for an explanation, but there was none. He received only the same stony, faceless regard he had the entire time.

"Spirit..." Javert began, "is - is there no... tenderness connected with this death, anywhere, that you might show me?"

Though Javert could see nothing of the Ghost's face, it seemed to be considering this question. At last, it offered its hand. Javert took it, trying not to cringe as he did so.

They stood in a different house, still dingy, but this one had the feeling more of sadness and neglect than it did of downright malevolence. The wallpaper was faded, and the mirror over the lowboy was cracked. There were two coats on the rack, one a man's, and one a lady's. Behind the coat rack was the main stair, which led to the small bedchambers upstairs.

Valjean sat at the table, a teacup held in a hand that could crush it like a flower. In his other hand, Valjean supported a copy of the _Moniteur_ , the very same edition that Thénardier had been in the middle of reading. He looked ill, perhaps, or as if he had not slept in a week. Purplish circles under his eyes made him appear drawn, and even the slump of his shoulders communicated defeat.

Valjean lifted the teacup to his lips, turning to the next page of the newspaper. He read, until his eyes widened in astonishment. Valjean set the cup down slowly, and it clinked and trembled against its saucer until he released it.

"My God," he said. "God Almighty. I -"

Dropping the newspaper like a hot coal, he put his hand against his chest. Valjean's eyes closed, and he sat like that for some time as if deep in thought.

There came the sound of quick footfalls on the stair; a young woman appeared, dressed in a simple but becoming gown and carrying a parasol.

"Papa," she said, "I am going out. I will be - Papa? Are you well?"

Valjean opened his eyes and looked up.

"C-certainly, Cosette," he stammered. "I was only reading the newspaper. An article's given me a bit of a shock, but it's nothing to worry about."

"If you're sure," said Cosette, though there was a lilt to her voice that suggested she was not quite satisfied. She came down to the landing and put on her coat. "I am going to see Marius," she announced. "I've made some more lint for his dressings."

"Of course," Valjean nodded, though Javert did not miss the shadow which fell over his face at those words. "Shall I accompany you?"

"If you like," Cosette answered back with a smile.

Valjean stood to go. He walked right past Javert, who had stepped out of his way; with the Second Spirit, Valjean had seemed almost attuned to Javert's presence. There, in that house, Valjean did not notice anything of him at all. The officer could not have said why this distressed him so, but it did. Perhaps it was only that he was used to commanding attention when he wished to have it. Still, had Javert been of a slightly more literary ilk, he might have expressed that Valjean's ignorance of his standing there made him feel more like he was a Ghost himself.

Father and daughter left. The door closed behind them and latched. Javert, with an urgency he had not until now known himself to possess, turned to the Ghost.

"Specter," said he, "tell me what man it was we saw lying dead."

The Ghost gestured with a surety that brooked no argument towards the paper abandoned on the tabletop. Having already suspected that the answer was printed there, Javert took half a pace towards the table when he stopped.

"Before I go any nearer to that at which you point, answer me one question." Javert was above begging, but in that moment he felt close to it. "Are these the shadows of things that Will Be, or are they the shadows of things that May Be only?"

The Spirit did not stir, nor did it break its silence.

"You Spirits - your purpose all along has been urging me to change course, has it not?" Javert persevered. "So surely, this vision you have shown me - it is a likely future, but not one cast in stone?"

Adamant, the Spirit pointed once again at the paper. Javert could find it within himself to hold back no longer. He went to the table, though a tremor had installed itself in his limbs, and located the story which had so shaken Valjean and enlivened Thénardier.

It was not so much an article as it was a footnote, an entire two paragraphs at the top of the page. They explained, with clinical objectivity, that the Police Inspector Javert had been pulled dead from the River Seine. Given that there were no signs of foul play, coupled with an odd letter in the Inspector's own hand delivered to the Prefect Henri Gisquet, the police were ruling it a suicide.

Javert leaned heavily on the edge of the table. His breath came faster, and the trembling was well and truly pronounced now.

"It - it cannot be," he managed. "It cannot - I _would_ not -" He drew a deep breath, trying and failing to steady his nerves. The Ghost was watching, this he knew. Pulling himself up shakily, he said, "Well, it's just not possible. There was a mistake, clearly. Perhaps... well, I did see Valjean with a knife. Perhaps the river only destroyed the evidence of foul play."

It was a weak assertion, and Javert knew as much. The Ghost was not content to let such a statement lie. It twisted its hand in midair, and at once Javert was re-enveloped in the scene that had flashed so briefly before him earlier.

 _They stood in an alleyway. Javert was slumped against the wall, his hands tied and his exhaustion evident. Valjean, who showed no sign of fatigue, stood before him, a carbine tucked in his waistband, and a_ surin _open in his palm. From somewhere nearby, there came the sounds of rapid, continuous gunfire._

 _Valjean advanced on the Inspector, and grabbing his opponent by the collar, pulled him upright. Javert looked him coolly in the face, plainly prepared to accept whatever death he was to be dealt. When Valjean raised his knife, however, it was not to cut Javert's throat, but the cord at his wrists._

 _Then Valjean pushed Javert away free; the Inspector stumbled back against the side of the alley. Valjean drew the carbine and fired it once, into the air. He turned and walked away, leaving the dismayed Inspector to his own devices._

The image passed, leaving Javert in the house with the Ghost.

"I see," he said numbly. "I see. Except - except I just can't believe that _I -_ "

The Ghost did not permit him to finish the thought. It grabbed Javert impatiently by the arm - an unpleasant experience in its own right, if truth be told - and they were plunged into a different place entirely.

The city bells were striking one o'clock in the morning. Before them was the Pont au Change; below them, the black river; above them, the black sky. There was a single, solitary figure on the bridge overlooking the water; the silhouette was a familiar one.

"Oh God," murmured Javert. "Oh God, oh God, oh..."

The man on the bridge removed his top hat and set it next to him on the parapet.

Javert spun around to face the Ghost.

"Do not tell me that this is how this ends," he pleaded. "Tell me that there is hope here."

The Ghost seemed to shiver.

"Please." That was not a word accustomed to having a place in Javert's mouth, but it found its way there easily now. "For God's sake!" Undone at last, Javert sank to his knees. "Don't make me _watch_ -!"

He grabbed at a handful of the Specter's greatcoat in what was possibly supplication, only to find it still and eternally soaking wet. Javert looked up as a sudden, unspeakable realization dawned on him. The identity of the Third Ghost crashed down around him, and he jerked away as if struck.

Nausea swept through Javert like a rotten wind. He was dizzy. He was going to be sick.

He raised his head once more to make some final, desperate entreaty, only to watch in stupefaction as the Ghost shrunk and folded upon itself to become nothing other than a simple bedcover. Then Javert fell forward, and landed with a start in his own bed in his own bedroom.


	5. Stave 5: The End of It

**A/N:** This is going up a little late for Yule and a little early for Christmas, but in any case, happy holidays to everyone. Thank you to all who have read, and to everyone who has left comments and kudos. You really do make my winter break a brighter one. I've had a great time writing this, and I hope you all enjoy the final installment of Un Chant de Noël.

* * *

Stave Five: The End of It

Javert sat up. His forehead was beaded with sweat, and his heart was still racing. He looked around him. It was his own bedroom, for certain. The window, the bedposts, the blankets, the chest of drawers, even the ugly old clock - all of it was there, unchanged.

Slowly, Javert wiped at his brow with the back of his hand. An absent thought wondered if it had all been a fever dream, but he banished the notion as soon as it occurred to him. He knew the limits of his imagination, and when they had been exceeded.

Rolling out of bed, Javert went to the window and looked out. How much time had passed with the Spirits? He could not be sure. Outside, the ground was still covered in snow, and a red-orange sun was rising above the chimneys. Javert narrowed his eyes in consideration and drew open the sash.

"Your pardon," he called out to a young gamin, who was engaged in building a snowman in front of the building. The boy looked up, and Javert went on, "What day is today?"

The boy gave Javert a look like he had grown a second head.

"Why, it's Christmas Day, Monsieur," he replied. "December twenty-fifth, in the year eighteen-twenty-three, if you want to know."

Javert closed his eyes, breathing a sigh of relief.

"Excellent," he said. "Wonderful!" He dug through his pockets and found a sous, which he tossed down to the surprised but grateful child. "Merry Christmas!"

The gamin called back, "Merry Christmas!" as Javert closed the window. The officer stood there a moment longer before he started to laugh. What began as a small chuckle quickly became more pronounced, until Javert slid down to the floor, entirely overcome by the fit of hysterics. He was by turns amazed, astonished, and disbelieving, but there was a spark of hope in his breast that resolve fanned into a flame. He did not know if spreading "Christmas cheer" was something of which he was capable, but he had never been more determined to try. He got back to his feet; it was early in the morning, but Javert had much to do.

The first thing was to dress. But what to wear? Looking through his clothes, he dithered, until a flash of inspiration struck. The idea brought a smirk to his face, and so he dug through his wardrobe and found his finest pair of trousers and a shirt to match. He also took the time to polish his boots before he went out into the main room.

And yes, this was his own, too. The dinner dishes from the night before lay abandoned in front of the fireplace, and there was no sign remaining of the Second Spirit's banquet or decorations, only Javert's bare walls and mantle. He wondered briefly if he ought to correct that, but there was not the time. Instead, he pulled his greatcoat off the rack and shouldered it, buttoning it quickly and cleanly.

In fact, once he had combed his hair and shaved, it was possible that Javert had never looked finer. His appearance was absolutely impeccable, which on its own people found intimidating, and when coupled with his usual mannerisms, people found terrifying. He gathered what spare coins he possessed and put them in his pocket, and then he was off, striding down the hall and out of the building as fast as his feet would carry him.

Javert hesitated on the stoop; it was one thing to make a resolution, and another thing entirely to see it done. Still, the officer was a stubborn man who had never backed out of anything he meant to do before, and he was not about to start. Mindful of the ice, Javert stepped out into the street, tipping his hat and bidding a good morning to those who passed. A handful of these seemed genuinely unnerved, at which Javert felt a pang of guilt, but most overcame their dis-ease and returned to him wishes for a Merry Christmas.

Growing in confidence, Javert hurried along through Paris. The first person he meant to find was standing in more or less the same place where Javert had encountered him the night before; it was the young, blond man with the red coat, who was plainly still collecting funds for the poor. Javert also realized suddenly that he had caught a glimpse of the youth in one of the Third Ghost's visions. Having no inclination to think about what that might mean, Javert shook off the odd sense of déjà vu and approached.

Upon seeing Javert, the young man and the handful of his associates that surrounded him collectively quieted.

"Monsieur?" the leader of the congregation inquired.

Javert cleared his throat. "I believe I owe you an apology, Monsieur," he announced. "I was hardly courteous last night."

The youth looked at him appraisingly. "Well," he said, "it is a good sentiment. Thank you."

"I haven't a great deal to offer," continued Javert, "but if you are still accepting donations, then please do take this."

There were murmurs of surprise and appreciation from the surrounding youths, though the amount Javert dropped in the collection pail could not have totaled more than a few francs.

The blond youth smiled. "So it would appear there are powers in the world that might change the hearts of any man. Thank you," he repeated. "Your example will not be forgotten, Monsieur."

"A Merry Christmas to you," said Javert.

"And a Happy New Year," the others chorused.

Javert inclined his hat and took his leave. Next, he made his way down the road until he located the alleyway he was searching for. Turning down it, he recognized the garbage heap, and in rounding that discovered the very same woman with her son who the Second Spirit had shown him, right in the midst of eating their Christmas oranges around the fire.

Hearing Javert's footsteps, the woman looked up in alarm. "Oh!" she cried, beholding the trim officer. "Monsieur! Monsieur, please, we only -"

Javert held up his hand as the woman became frantic. "Peace, Mademoiselle," he said. "There is no cause for concern. It is only that, well! I received a... a sort of tip-off, let us say, that there was a family here in need of assistance."

The woman and child regarded him uncertainly, their breakfast entirely forgotten.

"I am told that you need work, Mademoiselle," Javert continued, as gently as he could manage.

"Yes," the woman replied suspiciously, "but who told -"

"A well-wisher," Javert interrupted. "Someone keen to spread, ah, the 'Christmas Spirit'. I may have a solution. There is an opening for a secretarial position at the police station on the corner."

The woman blinked at him. "B-but, Monsieur," she stuttered, "they will not hire me, not when my little Claude's father left us."

"They will," Javert assured her. "Tomorrow, go in there and inform the officers that Javert has sent you. The man who turns you down for a position will get to stand in my office and tell me why."

The woman's mouth hung agape. "Monsieur!" she exclaimed. "Can it really be so?"

"I should think so," said Javert. "I don't make a habit of making promises I can't keep."

"Oh my," the woman said faintly. "Do you hear that, Claude? The nice man thinks he can get your mama a job."

The little child looked at Javert with round eyes.

Javert, who had been a bit taken aback by the phrase "the nice man", grinned. "A happy holiday to you both," he said.

"Won't you sit with us?" asked the woman, gesturing to a milk crate pulled alongside their fire.

Javert shook his head. "Apologies, Mademoiselle, but I believe I am behind schedule."

"Goodness!" said the woman. "Don't let us keep you, then."

"I will see you tomorrow at the station," Javert promised. "I'm sure Chabouillet will be delighted to have a new secretary."

"Thank you, Monsieur!" the mother called after him as he went back in the direction of the street. "A thousand times thank you!"

Javert looked at the time, for he knew he had not a minute to spare. Perhaps it was already too late. He was about to hail a fiacre, when a shop across the street caught his eye. The lights twinkled, and the evergreen boughs perfectly framed a selection of children's clothing. Making a handful of mental calculations, the officer took a deep breath. He would make time, he decided, and would hope for good fortune to follow.

Crossing the street, Javert walked inside the door of the small boutique. The shopkeeper was on hand immediately, eager to sell as many last-minute gifts as she could before closing the place at the lunch hour. Javert gestured to the left-hand wall, which had dozens of little coats and dresses and petticoats.

"As many girl's things as you can fit in... that trunk," Javert told her, pointing to a child-sized leather piece of luggage.

Taking down the trunk from the shelf, the proprietress asked, "In what size?"

Javert was temporarily flummoxed. "Er..." he hummed. "She's an eight-year-old... Very thin," he added.

The shopkeeper gave him a sort of reproving look as she removed a green velvet dress from the rack.

"Something like this?" she asked, holding it aloft.

Javert tried to gauge Cosette's height as best he could. "I think so," he said. "Better a size larger than too small."

Nodding, the proprietress packed several outfits in the little trunk, and included a few sets of stockings, a coat, and a muff.

"You'll have a very happy little girl, Monsieur," the woman smiled as she totaled up his purchase.

"That's the idea," Javert said under his breath. "Send the bill to my office. I'll pay for it one way or another, even if it means eating nothing but chicken broth for a month."

He took the trunk by the handle and practically ran out of the building to catch a carriage. He realized as he was climbing aboard that he did have one other stop to make, at which he first muttered, "Drat," and then, "Well, so be it."

Providing the driver with the instructions, Javert settled down in the plush interior, and the vehicle made to leave Paris. The countryside was alive and glittering with its snowbanks and windswept trees, though any creature with some sense was curled up asleep in a warm burrow. Only a lone lark sat twittering on a branch as they passed underneath. It was likely a function of his impatience, but it seemed to Javert that it took forever before the fiacre finally pulled up outside the château belonging to the Secretary.

"Wait here," Javert instructed the driver. "I won't be long."

He hustled up the walk to the front door, pulling his coat tighter against the cold, and struck the knocker.

It was Chabouillet himself who opened the door, and his expression went in seconds from polite to confused to astounded.

"Javert!" he said, opening the door wider. "As I live and breathe - do come in, by all means."

Taking the step up into the antechamber, Javert stamped the snow from his boots and bundled himself inside the warm house. The place glowed with light; there seemed to be more of it, even, than the dozens of candles and lamps were capable of producing.

Chabouillet was saying, "Allard and the others just got here. Why, we were just wondering if you would drop by, weren't we?" He turned to the collection of officers who were gathering at the door to the salon, all of whom looked just as surprised as the Secretary.

Javert laughed softly to himself. "Yes, I expect you were," he replied. "I am afraid I cannot stay long, Messieurs, I have some urgent business to take care of, but I did want to stop and wish you all a very Merry Christmas."

"Not work-related business, I hope?" Chabouillet asked shrewdly.

He hesitated for a moment, thinking, but then Javert answered, "No, I think it is appropriate to call this exclusively a personal matter."

The Secretary looked at him with renewed interest. "Is that so? Good, then. I am glad to see you have holiday plans after all, and gladder still that you came to see us."

Chabouillet offered Javert a drink, who declined it. The Secretary was persistent, however, and so Javert allowed himself a single glass of mulled cider before he said his goodbyes.

"You're sure you cannot stay longer?" Chabouillet asked. "There's plenty to be had this evening for dinner, and my wife is a splendid cook."

"Quite sure," Javert said firmly. "Perhaps next year."

The Secretary held the door as Javert went once more out into the snow. "If you change your mind, dinner is at five."

Javert's "Thank you" was sincere, and he added, "We'll see". Fortunately, the carriage had waited, so the officer hurried down the path to it and caught the attention of the driver.

"As quickly as you can, now, if you don't mind," he said.

"Where to, Monsieur?" asked the driver.

Javert smiled to himself as he climbed into the cab. "Montfermeil."

Some last vestige of Christmas magic must still have been at play, for the journey between Paris and Montfermeil was a long one, and yet as the horses drew the fiacre onward, they seemed to cover improbable distances with each step. In this way, it was hardly past mid-morning when the vehicle trundled to a stop in the town square.

"Here is fine," Javert called out, and he sprang quickly from the cab. He made doubly sure to take with him the trunk, and as he paid the driver, he cast an analytical glance across the square toward the Waterloo Inn.

Offering his thanks, Javert made his way now with caution over to the Inn. In daylight, it looked even more ramshackled a place than it had in the Ghost's nighttime vision. The plaster over the brickwork was cracked, and the sign was a shoddily-painted affair made by one with little skill in such matters. There were a few scraggly bushes underneath the window, and it was behind these that he concealed the trunk.

Javert then peeked quickly in through the window; it was dirty, which blurred the view, but Valjean's sizable form was unmistakable. He sat at a table, the room apparently empty otherwise, facing away from the door and sipping a cup of tea. The officer was unaccountably nervous, for Valjean surely had good reason to detest him, but he hoped this might make up for some portion of it.

His idea from earlier that morning returned to him, and he bit back another smirk. Javert stood at attention. His uniform was crisp, and the buttons had a dangerous glimmer to them. He assumed the grimmest expression of which he was capable, and then Javert opened the door.

Black leather boots clipped against the wooden plank floor. Valjean appeared to tense, first at the creak of the hinges, and then at the click of boot heels which bespoke authority. His shoulders drew in, and he hunched down over the table as if to make himself less visible. Why he thought that might be successful, Javert was unsure. The man's coat was ochre yellow, and it drew the eye as much as anything.

Boots were one matter, but there was not a sound in the world liable to make the man in yellow flinch as sharply and as suddenly as Javert's voice, positively dripping with sardonic displeasure, calling him, "Jean Valjean."

Valjean spun around in his chair, panic in his eyes, a panic which grew in its scope when he saw Javert standing in the doorway. And to be sure, Javert was, in this man's sight, the very image of mortal terror. He was merciless, unrelenting, and impossible to reason with, and moreover he possessed the power to put Valjean in prison for life with a single word. A man of lesser constitution in such a position might have fainted.

"Javert," Valjean said hoarsely, staggering to his feet. "Javert, please -" he went on, scooting around the table so that it stood between them. "- how did you -"

"Valjean," Javert growled, advancing by a deliberate step. "You made yourself scarce, but it seems I've finally caught up to you."

Valjean was cornered, and he knew it. Ordinarily, his instinct would have been to run out the back and pray that Javert was not accompanied by enough men to catch him, but there was Cosette to consider. He could not leave her, so he stalled.

"Monsieur," he began. "You do not understand. I am here -"

"- for Cosette, yes," Javert interjected coldly. "I know all about it."

"Is - is that so?"

"Oh yes." Javert was in his element; he prowled forward like a tiger preparing to strike. "It is Fantine's child. Fantine left her in the care of the innkeepers here."

"These innkeepers," protested Valjean, stumbling over his words. "They are dreadful people - she isn't safe here!"

Javert reached the table. He planted his hands on the surface and leaned forward to look Valjean in the eyes. Valjean froze.

"I know," Javert replied in the same flat, cold tone of voice. "Which is why I have decided to assist you in removing her from the premises to a place where the two of you can lead a free and happy life."

Valjean opened his mouth to argue, and then closed it with a frown. He visibly thought through what Javert had just said, but none of the words he had heard made any sense in the combination Javert had spoken them.

Taking half a step back, Valjean managed an, "I... beg your pardon?"

Javert raised an eyebrow. "You heard me," he said quietly. He glanced over his shoulder to make sure they were still alone. "I am not here to arrest you, Valjean."

A strong constitution can only carry one so far; Valjean's legs gave out and he stumbled back into the nearest chair. His face was white with shock, but mingled with the astonishment in his eyes was a growing hopeful light.

"Are you feeling quite well?" Valjean asked, shaking his head as though he were trying to wake up. "Javert, what's _happened_ to you?"

Javert did not bother hiding his smile any longer. "A great many things," he replied. "And I'm not sure I could explain them if I tried."

Valjean half-laughed, drawing his chair back to the table. "Well, sit down," he invited, waving towards a second chair. "Thénardier is preparing whatever nonsense he means to bill me for, but he ought to be back presently."

Javert rested his hand on the chair's crest rail, but reconsidered. "Actually," he said, "I think I prefer to stand." He came around the table to stand at Valjean's side, but he faced away from the tabletop, towards the fireplace at the back of the room. "Do you mind?" he asked, looking down at Valjean.

So great was his surprise at being asked that any discomfort Valjean might have felt at having Javert be so close evaporated. "Ah, no, not at all," he replied, shifting his seat to better accommodate the two of them.

The pair was silent for a long moment, Valjean looking toward the door and Javert looking toward the fireplace. Then there came the faintest patter of footsteps; Javert raised his eyes to see Cosette on the staircase, creeping down step by step. Her gaze was fixed on Valjean, and so it was not until she had come down to the landing and was slipping over to her table by the fire that she noticed the officer standing in the room. Her eyes grew wide, but she made no sound. Javert curled his fingers in the semblance of a wave, and, tilting her head, Cosette returned the gesture.

The next set of footsteps to fall across their collective ears were swift and self-assured, though they then faltered; Thénardier had entered the room expecting to rob a man, and found the man suddenly accompanied by the police. As he was facing away from the newcomer, Javert allowed himself a small smile, different from the others he had made that morning, and more in keeping with his old nature. It was the smile of a man who was fully prepared to dispense justice, and Javert was sure there was not a Spirit above or below the earth who might criticize his doing so in that instance.

"Monsieur owes twenty-six sous," said Thénardier, crossing the room to the table.

"Only twenty-six sous?" Valjean asked mildly. "The paper your wife presented me said twenty-three francs."

Keeping his back turned, Javert tried to make no reaction to that outrageous amount.

"Twenty sous for the chamber," Thénardier resumed, "and six sous for supper. As for the child, I must discuss that matter a little."

Ah, Javert thought. So they had come to it at last.

"And, er," Thénardier went on, "who is your friend?"

Javert turned slowly on the spot to stare Thénardier down.

"I am Javert," the officer introduced himself. "An officer from Paris, under Secretary Chabouillet."

"From Paris?" Thénardier's face turned the color of spoiled cream. "That is not a short journey, Monsieur."

"Oh, but it was imperative I come," Javert smiled icily. "Call me an interested party."

"Sir," Thénardier said, looking to Valjean, "what I have to say to you is this, that I adore that child." He made an air of sincerity, but Javert would not have needed the vision provided by the Second Spirit to see through the act, and neither, it seemed, did Valjean.

"What child?" Valjean asked him blandly.

"Eh! Our little Cosette! Are you not intending to take her away from us? I will not consent to it." Thénardier made a great show of this, fussing about, and he continued, "It is true that we are not rich; it is true that I have paid over four hundred francs for just one of her illnesses! But one must do something for the good God's sake. She has neither father nor mother. I have brought her up."

Neither Valjean nor Javert said anything to this, they only stared impassively at Thénardier.

The innkeeper looked between them and tittered uncomfortably. "Excuse me, sir," he said, "but one does not give away one's child to a passerby like that. You have the air of a very good man - but one must find out that. One must, at least, see some petty scrap of paper, some trifle in the way of a passport, you know!"

Valjean licked his lips and shot Javert a look before he answered back, "Monsieur Thénardier, one does not require a passport to travel five leagues from Paris."

Javert nodded in solemn agreement. "That is entirely correct, Monsieur."

Leaning forward, Valjean said, "If I take Cosette away, I shall take her away, and that is the end of the matter. You will not know my name, you will not know my residence, you will not know where she is; and my intention is that she shall never set eyes on you again so long as she lives. Does that suit you? Yes or no?"

It was fortunate that Javert was practiced in keeping his facial expressions under control; he had expected Valjean to need his assistance handling the innkeeper, but the man was more than holding his own, and it was all Javert could do to keep his expression neutral, rather than express his increasing amusement. Thénardier also seemed to realize that he was losing in the negotiations.

"Sir," said he, "I am in need of fifteen hundred francs."

Now was the moment Javert was sure his intervention would be required - it was extortion! it was an impossibility! it was out of the question! - but Valjean calmly drew a battered pocketbook from his coat. He counted and removed three bank-bills, which he held where Thénardier could see them.

"Go and fetch Cosette's things" he said.

Well, there was nothing Thénardier would not do for money. He summoned his wife, who collected Cosette's doll; she had no other belongings. However, as the whole group stood in the public room, Valjean presenting Cosette with a black mourning dress to wear, Mme. Thénardier leaned over to her husband and whispered in his ear.

"Huh," said Thénardier. "My wife makes a good point." He crossed the floor to Valjean and thrust the three bank-bills toward him.

"What is the meaning of this?" Javert asked, crossing his arms.

Thénardier smiled and shrugged his shoulders. "It means, Monsieur, that I shall take back Cosette."

Cosette hid behind Valjean, holding onto his leg.

Valjean looked about him incredulously. "You are going to take back Cosette?" he repeated.

Nodding sententiously, Thénardier explained, "I have not the right to give her to you. It was her mother who confided her to me; I can only resign her to her mother. Failing that, I can only give the child up to a person who shall bring me a writing, signed by the mother, that I am to hand the girl over to the person therein mentioned." This Thénardier proclaimed, to the amazement of everyone else in the room. "Of course," Thénardier went on, "I suppose it is possible that a wealthy enough man might convince me of his trustworthiness with a greater sum, but I could not be swayed by anything less than a thousand crowns."

Saying nothing, Valjean again pulled out his pocketbook.

"Absolutely not," Javert interceded.

Thénardier spread his arms. "Surely what I ask is no less than what is recommended under the law."

Javert glared. "I happen to be able to testify that the woman Fantine is dead."

Thénardier grimaced, but he quickly masked it. "All the more reason, then. Cosette was entrusted to us; is it not for us to decide what becomes of her?"

Javert drew himself up to his full height. "I have half a mind to arrest you for everything from abuse to coercion to price-fixing. Fortunately for you, I know you have two little girls of your own upstairs, and I am in a rather more lenient mood today than usual." He turned to Valjean, who was still thumbing through his pocketbook. "Do not give this _innkeeper_ another centime," he said. "Bring Cosette, and let us go."

Valjean had discovered what he was searching for. The paper he pulled from the worn leather was not another bank-bill, but a note.

"There," he said with satisfaction. "I think you will find that more than suffices."

Confused, Thénardier went to take the note, but Javert got hold of it first.

The officer read aloud, "Monsieur Thénardier, You are to deliver Cosette to this person. You will be paid for all the little things. I have the honor to salute you with respect, Fantine."

Thénardier snatched the paper away and stared at it in disbelief.

"I think that about settles it," Javert said dryly.

Valjean reached down and hoisted Cosette onto his hip, whereupon she buried her face in his shoulder. They turned to go, Javert with them.

Thénardier called out, "I must be paid for those little things, Monsieur. A great deal is owing to me."

Valjean stopped and sighed. He held Cosette out to Javert and then turned back around.

"Monsieur Thénardier, according to the records, Fantine's account owed you thirty-five francs as of today. I have just given you fifteen-hundred francs. Keep the change, and have a Merry Christmas."

Javert was more than a bit startled to be suddenly holding a child, and so he was relieved when Valjean took her back and walked out the door. The officer followed suit, blinking in the brilliant sunlight. Ducking down for a moment, Javert located the trunk of clothes and pulled it out of where he had hidden it.

He coughed gently; Valjean, who was setting Cosette down on the cobbled street, looked up.

"This is for you," Javert said, crouching down to Cosette's height. "I thought she might need more than one outfit," he added to Valjean.

"Javert..." Valjean murmured, but Javert dismissed him with a wave of the hand.

"Interrogate me at your leisure," said the officer, "for I am sure you must have about a thousand questions, but let us get the little one out of the cold first. Where are you headed?"

"...Paris," Valjean answered cautiously. "But I had thought to walk part of the way first."

Javert frowned. "In this cold?" he asked. "No, no, take a fiacre."

Valjean lifted his eyebrows. "There is not a fiacre who will carry us all the way from here to Paris."

"There is if I tell them to."

It was a matter of only a few minutes before an empty carriage passed by, and Javert caught the attention of the driver. Flagging him down, the vehicle rolled to a stop. Seeing Javert's uniform, the driver did not even hesitate when the officer explained that they needed a ride to the city. Valjean helped Cosette inside and lifted her trunk up as well; however, once the driver had returned to his box, Valjean bid Cosette to wait a moment and he pulled Javert aside.

"What is it?" asked Javert.

Valjean only looked at him.

"Ah," said Javert, comprehending the problem. "You are worried that this is a trick, that I intend to lure you under false pretenses to a police station where I can arrest you."

Valjean gave him what might have been an apologetic expression, but did not reply.

"It is fair of you. A compromise, then," Javert proposed. "I have a standing invitation to join the Secretary of Police for dinner; he lives a quarter-league outside of Paris. Suppose I ride the carriage that far, and then the two of you can take it... wherever you're going in the city."

Valjean nodded slowly. "And... how likely is your Secretary to abandon dinner and follow after us?"

Javert spread his hands. "Seeing as he expressly forbade us all working on Christmas Day? I would imagine you have every chance of getting where you're going unharassed."

Snorting quietly, Valjean asked, "Is that what this is, then? A Christmas miracle? Do you go back to being... yourself tomorrow?"

Javert looked down at the ground. "I certainly hope not," he muttered.

Valjean gave him a searching look. "Alright," he said finally. "Alright. Get in the cab."

The officer climbed up into carriage and sat down opposite Cosette. Valjean joined them a second later, and the girl snuggled up next to him. She soon fell asleep, and her new father watched over her with an intense fondness.

All were quiet during that long road trip back to Paris. At first there was an awkwardness to it, but as the time and distance passed and Javert made no move except to doze lightly in his seat, Valjean relaxed and it became a companionable silence.

It was a quarter-to-four when the fiacre reached Chabouillet's home. The vehicle stopped, and Javert made to disembark.

Cosette, awakened by the small jolt of the cab, opened her eyes sleepily and sat up. She tugged on Valjean's sleeve and murmured, "Where's he going?"

Javert paused at the door.

"He's going to have dinner with some friends of his," explained Valjean.

"Oh," said Cosette through a yawn. "I like him. He wasn't scared of... of Monsieur." She curled back up at Valjean's side and continued to murmur, "Neither was Papa. Papa was very brave."

Javert huffed a breath of laughter. "Look after her," he said to Valjean. "I can't say that I've ever felt 'charmed' before, but..."

Valjean smiled, and though there was still something of reservation in it, there was also softness. Tipping his hat, Javert climbed out into the snow and was starting up the path to the front door when he heard a "Wait!" behind him.

Surprised, Javert turned about; Valjean was hurrying after him, looking contrite.

"Sorry, Monsieur, but -" he began.

"Don't 'Monsieur' me," Javert interrupted. "I've given you too much grief for that."

"Well," Valjean looked away. "Javert, I did want to talk, I just... did not know what was best to say in front of Cosette."

Javert nodded.

"But," Valjean continued, "I wanted to say... thank you. Thank you for Cosette's gift, and for scaring the wits out of Thénardier, and for... and for whatever this change is that's come over you. I thank you most of all for that."

"Don't thank _me_ for it," Javert said with some amusement. "I assure you, I was quite irritated the entire time."

Valjean made a face as if to say, "Go on".

"You'll be standing out here all night if I try to explain it," warned Javert.

Conceding defeat, Valjean shrugged. "Very well, then," he said. "But that brings me to the other thing I wanted to say. Your... compromise was a thoughtful one, but perhaps unnecessary. Cosette seems to enjoy your company, and goodness knows I will go mad if I don't get this story out of you sooner or later, so what would you say if I were to... invite you to dinner tomorrow?"

Javert had spent much of the day astonishing other people; now he was the one astonished.

"You're inviting me to dinner?" he repeated.

"I am, if you're accepting."

Javert ran his fingers through his hair. "Ah, well, I suppose I'm accepting."

Valjean's smile was somewhere between skittish and shy. "Good, then," he said. "We're heading for a place on the Boulevard de l'Hôpital. It's called the Gorbeau House - a rather rough sort of place, I'm afraid, but it was the best I could do to begin with. First apartment at the top of the stairs."

Though Valjean did not say so out loud, the plea to not abuse the knowledge of his address was implicit, and Javert felt distinctly unworthy of his trust.

"I can find it," Javert nodded. "Shall we say six?"

"Six," Valjean agreed. "And, a Merry Christmas to you, Javert."

The officer gave him a crooked smile. "Merry Christmas, Valjean. Goodnight."

"Goodnight."

Valjean reached out and shook Javert by the hand before returning to the fiacre. Javert stood and watched the little vehicle disappear from sight; a sudden compulsion led him to wave goodbye, and then he went up again to the Secretary's front door to knock.

* * *

Javert was better than his word. He visited Valjean, first once, then twice, and soon it became routine. He listened to the plights of everyone from the beggar-folk to his fellow officers, helping where he could, and offering a sympathetic ear when he could not. When he made Inspector, which he did in due course, Chabouillet had never been prouder to bestow the title. As for the events of the June Rebellion, we shall leave history to tell that story, but if one barricade held a little longer and saw a little less bloodshed, well, that is all the more the author knows about it.

It was ever after said of Javert that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man possessed the knowledge. And if some laughed at his tradition of setting a plate of food aside on Christmas Eve for the _mule_ , the beloved departed Spirits, then he only shrugged and left it out regardless. He would put it on the floor, underneath the broken bell-pull, and would say nothing of it, even if he were questioned. That was the end of it, such as it was, and there was no doubt that all lived very happily until the end of their days.

 _Fin_

 _Merry Christmas_


End file.
